The University of Wisconsin has decided to act against doctors in their system that provided fraudulent medical excuses for demonstrators in Madison earlier this year.  The medical school reviewed allegations against 22 of its faculty/staff and will remove them from “leadership positions” and dock their pay:

UW Health doctors who wrote sick notes for protesters at the Capitol in February face penalties up to a loss of pay and leadership positions, the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said Tuesday.

The medical school reviewed 22 UW Health doctors said to have been involved in writing medical excuses for protesters attending rallies over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposals, according to a medical school statement.

Some of those alleged to have participated were found to be in the clear, according to the statement.  The school will not comment on who specifically got exonerated and who will face disciplinary action, citing privacy reasons.  However, if loss of leadership positions occur, it will be pretty easy to pick out the guilty.

Furthermore, that may not be the end of their woes:

The Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing and the Medical Examining Board are investigating eight people who allegedly wrote notes, the agencies said last week.

The school gave the doctors who did write notes an opportunity to rescind them, which apparently none of those facing discipline did.  The university calls this a “trust” issue, and they’re right.  It’s also a legal and moral issue when one abets fraud against an employer.  Perhaps these doctors’ employer should keep in mind just how anxious these particular employees were to abet that fraud when considering them for leadership roles or choice assignments in the future.

In other Wisconsin news, the recount of the Supreme Court election has begun, and trouble arose again in the controversial Waukesha County ballots, at least briefly:

After more than a half-hour of meticulous instructions and ground rules relayed by Waukesha County’s chief canvasser, retired Judge Robert G. Mawdsley, questions were raised about the very first bag of ballots to be counted, from the Town of Brookfield.

As canvassers and tabulators compared a numbered seal on a bag with the number recorded for that bag by a town election inspector who prepared the paperwork on election night, the numbers didn’t match.

“What a great way to start,” one official tabulator said.

Observers from the campaigns of Justice David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg both agreed, however, that the error seemed to be in the inspector’s use of a “2” instead of a “3.” Numbers on the sealing tag and on the bag did match. Both sides and the Board of Canvassers agreed that the bag should be opened and the votes counted.

Interestingly, it appears that they are recounting the entire state — by hand.  Earlier, we had heard that the recount would only be limited to counties that use older ballot technology, but today’s report specifies that all 72 counties have initiated their recounts.  They are recounting by hand so that they do not have to zero out the machine counts to re-tally the ballots.  The entire process has a deadline of May 9th, and if they’re counting 1.5 million ballots by hand, they’ll probably need every day of it.