James

DEC 08, 2016Recount is done i observed from TH. to Monday nothing to report that is not all ready known from the News Paper in Green Bay no one seemed happy for the Green Party Jill Stein gained no more votes then she had in the election total.

Carter

DEC 02, 2016Everyone was very earnest and serious about getting the numbers right. In Monona, Trump picked up 7 votes and Clinton 15. They found 9 absentee ballots that had not been removed from the envelopes. In springfield everything corresponded to the official results. I have video of almost the whole thing but don’t think there was anything worth reviewing, but let me know and i’d be happy to upload. I’m going back to NYC, so good luck and godspeed with the rest of the recount.

Elizabeth

The recount workers, county clerk’s staff, and municipality clerks appear very committed to the process, if some are skeptical of the reasons for it. It also appears that there are poll worker/recount workers from both major parties participating. Only *the* designated person from a candidate or party is allowed to make objections. I designated myself after a recount worker told me I had to be ‘official’, and I grabbed a ‘primary candidate’s observer’ lanyard until I left. (The other woman was not going to be staying for more than an hour.)Hello – I have some info to report on today’s recount proceedings in Brown County. 1. General Situation:  The recount workers, county clerk’s staff, and municipality clerks appear very committed to the process, if some are skeptical of the reasons for it. It also appears that there are poll worker/recount workers from both major parties participating. Only *the* designated person from a candidate or party is allowed to make objections. I designated myself after a recount worker told me I had to be ‘official’, and I grabbed a ‘primary candidate’s observer’ lanyard until I left. (The other woman was not going to be staying for more than an hour.)The process didn’t start today until 11. It’s in a not-overly-large room. There are three tables of recounters. It sounds as if there are 99 municipalities or ward groupings to deal with. They will work 9-7 and plan to finish on the 12th. The clerk allowed me to take photos of anything I wanted to – I was asked by a recounter to get her permission prior to doing so, and she came over and let them know it was perfectly fine. 2. Green Party Situation:  Only TWO (2) volunteers who signed up with the Green Party (including me) were there this morning. Around 2, 2:30, a woman from Madison came in and also it seems like the leader of the Green Bay Green Party showed up. I spoke to this man during a break mid-afternoon. I don’t think he was there for more than an hour or so, but he definitely had on his Green Party T-shirt and pins and took a bunch of selfies. The woman from Madison did observe while she was there and I only spoke with her briefly before she had to leave. The Greens need participants. Again, the Clinton group is not making objections – not that there were many made today, but if the aim is enforcement, it’s important.3. Observations: I am attaching some photos of notes I took, the machine, the Clinton sheets I filled out (I was on sight only for the whole of the first one for Town of Glenmore, and I had to leave before Town of Lawrence had gone through the machine). Feel free to call with questions. 4. Going forward: I am not able to participate the next three days, and it would be helpful to have an online scheduling sign-up, not just one email that asks if we have cars and can bring snacks. We need people from the requesting party observing in the third most populous county. The Clinton people are not making actionable objections. I am not aware that the Trump rep did. I spoke with him on a few occasions, in particular when we were looking at the ’tamper-proof seal’ issue I objected to in Town of Lawrence. He seemed to agree with me that the Brown County clerks are not using the tamper-proof seals appropriately, however, in my estimation, from what I observed, this failure was a standard practice of Municipal clerks, and seems to have amounted to harmless error, at least in the first two townships I observed. Again, I raised that objection in Town of Lawrence wards 4-6, where1674 votes were involved. NOTE: this could end up being a non-harmless error at some point. It would behoove the party to skim off some do-nothing Clinton observers so we can have at least one Green Party representative available in the room to object if needed. Better would be to have 4 people available at the facility, one at each table and the person ‘in charge’ floating and available to object if need be. 

The municipal clerks are not following the seal instructions per the WEC. In my observations today, this did not seem to have allowed misconduct, but an objection was leveled and included in the minutes in the wards indicated in the photo. This is a picture of a photocopy, which is what the County Clerk’s office has in their envelope for canvassing. The muni envelopes have the originals, showing more clearly that the tamper-proof seals are being stuck to the Inspectors’ Statements instead of to the edges of the boxes containing the ballots. The boxes containing the ballots are not identified by the number of the tamper-proof seal, but only by the municipality and ward numbers.

In Town of Lawrence, 1675 ballots were counted by the machine, but just 1674 votes were counted, because one ballot got jammed and it was counted by the feed-in mechanism twice but the votes were not scanned twice. The vote totals reflected this, and the inspectors’ notes also explained the situation, and the fact that there was in fact one less ballot’s votes counted. 

I left at this time on Dec. 1, and these were the notes posted by then.