Actual quote: “I am 80 years old and I don’t understand anything about computers.”

Once the canvass had been completed and the results were finalized, I was called into Kathy’s office along with Pat (the Republican observer) and told of an impending 5:30pm press conference. It was at that point that I was first made aware of an error Kathy had made in Brookfield City. Kathy told us she thought she had saved the Brookfield voter information Tuesday night, but then on Wednesday she said she noticed she had not hit save. Kathy didn’t offer an explanation about why she didn’t mention anything prior to Thursday afternoon’s canvass completion, but showed us different tapes where numbers seemed to add up, though I have no idea where the numbers were coming from. I was not told of the magnitude of this error, just that she had made one. I was then instructed that I would not say anything at the press conference, and was actually surprised when I was asked questions by reporters.

The reason I offer this explanation is that, with the enormous amount of attention this has received over the weekend, many people are offering my statements at the press conference that the “numbers jibed” as validation they are correct and I can vouch for their accuracy. As I told Kathy when I was called into the room — I am 80 years old and I don’t understand anything about computers. I don’t know where the numbers Kathy was showing me ultimately came from, but they seemed to add up. I am still very, very confused about why the canvass was finalized before I was informed of the Brookfield error and it wasn’t even until the press conference was happening that I learned it was this enormous mistake that could swing the whole election. I was never shown anything that would verify Kathy’s statement about the missing vote, and with how events unfolded and people citing me as an authority on this now, I feel like I must speak up.

She also finds it unusual that they were called in to canvass on Wednesday morning instead of the usual Thursday procedure. Just spitballing here, but might that have something to do with … the intense national interest in the race and the astoundingly narrow margin between Prosser and Kloppenburg? Maybe?

Click the image below and skip to 13:30 to watch her turn at the mic at last week’s presser. She sure did seem comfortable with the results at the time; I shudder to think what sort of “encouragement” she’s been getting from Democrats since then to convince her to sign off on a statement as demeaning as this one. It’ll all be for naught, too: Read Mark Blumenthal’s analysis at HuffPo(!) of how the new Waukesha numbers are more believable than the ones from election night and how the sort of recording error made by county clerk Kathy Nickolaus really isn’t all that unusual. His is the third statistical model to lend credence to the updated vote totals since they were announced. And if that’s not convincing enough, forget the statisticians and simply note that a paper in Brookfield — where the “missing” votes were “found” — actually published the correct vote total on election night. The votes were there all along, as tallied and reported by the City of Brookfield. The “error” came when Nickolaus forgot to include the updated numbers from the city in relaying her vote totals to the AP.

So no, these votes aren’t getting overturned, but Democrats already know that. The point of putting out Kitzinger’s statement isn’t to win an election that’s now lost but to delegitimize the outcome as best they can. Why, not only did Walker and Nickolaus rig the vote for Prosser, they tricked a sweet old lady to do it. It’s practically senior abuse. The bastards.

Update: The state investigation in Waukesha is ongoing, but to no one’s surprise, no shenanigans have been detected thus far:

GAB Director Kevin Kennedy says the agency’s investigation of spring election procedures in Waukesha County remains ongoing, but that the final canvass numbers in the city of Brookfield match the initial tallies from poll workers on Election Night.

“We don’t see, at this point, any criminal activity, but we certainly see practices that need to be changed to bolster public confidence,” Kennedy said.