GOP Fears Vote Grab As Dems Surge Ahead In Wisconsin

Republicans are voicing fears that a Minnesota-style vote grab could be underway in Wisconsin following reports that the union-backed Democratic challenger to incumbent conservative Wisconsin Justice David Prosser has surged ahead in next-day vote counting.

Early morning vote tallies showed Prosser clinging to a razor-thin lead of 598 votes with 99 percent of the votes counted. But the counting of additional votes on Wednesday morning propelled challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg into the lead by 235 votes.

The high level of concern over possible vote fraud was reflected in a request made by Milwaukee Election Commissioner Robert Spindell, who is active in GOP politics, that police be dispatched to guard ballots and voting machines overnight. The extent to which ballots were guarded statewide remains unclear.

That reversal conjured unhappy memories for Republicans of the bitterly contested 2008 recount battle between incumbent GOP Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken in Minnesota. Coleman had a 775 vote lead on Election Day. But as additional votes were counted in the days that followed, Franken surged to a 251 vote lead that he never relinquished despite a long legal battle over absentee ballots.

Already, both sides in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race are predicting a drawn out recount. Wall Street Journal election expert John Fund, author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, tells Newsmax the concerns of a repeat of political intrigue in Wisconsin similar to the GOP experience in Minnesota are well founded, given the lax voter registration standards Wisconsin has enacted.

“Like Wisconsin,” Fund tells Newsmax, “Al Franken's race in Minnesota in 2008 featured a same-day voter law which allowed people to register and vote at the same time on Election Day -- an open, engraved invitation to fraud.

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