Gov. Walker Vows: Unions Won't Steal Prosser Election Win

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is vowing to Newsmax readers that organized labor will not steal back the dramatic come-from-behind victory of Supreme Court Justice David Prosser even if unions end up paying for a recount.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax -- part of a national tour to drum up national support for his dramatic fight against public union power in Wisconsin -- the Republican governor says there is no way any legitimate recount would result in a victory for Prosser's liberal opponent.

But that doesn't remove the threat. Under Wisconsin law organized labor can get a recount if they're woking to pay for it. Walker says unions hope to replicate in Wisconsin “what was pulled off with Senator [Al] Franken in Minnesota." He promises, though, that Republicans will be on guard against any post-election ballot shenanigans.

Walker is referring to Democrat Al Franken’s upset win over GOP incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008, which saw a Coleman lead on Election Night morph into a Franken victory during a drawn-out recount battle, came during an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV.

Walker’s concern over the integrity of Wisconsin’s spring elections came in the context of Justice Prosser’s battle for re-election over liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The unions poured millions of dollars into the race because a victory would give liberal jurists a 4-3 majority in the state Supreme Court. The race also was seen as a national test of whether standing up to the unions could be too costly on Election Day. The contest became a political battle royal and set a record for outside television expenditures by third-party groups.

After Tuesdays election, Kloppenburg appeared to be clinging to a paper-thin 204-vote margin out of 1.5 million votes cast.

But on Thursday, officials conducting a routine canvass discovered that 14,000 votes cast in heavily Republican Waukesha County were inadvertently omitted from the vote totals that were submitted to state election officials.

When those votes from the conservative stronghold were counted, Prosser shot out to a 7,500-vote lead.

Walker tells Newsmax that Prosser’s lead is well above the number needed to avoid the automatic statewide recount that Democrats are seeking. But he added state law allows them to request a recount as long as they’re willing to underwrite the cost.

“That will be pretty costly,” Walker says. “But I think it’s pretty clear that the big government labor-union bosses that have been fighting the reforms in Wisconsin now for the past month and a half, I don’t think they’re going to give up.

I think they’re going to throw out everything here, and hope somehow they can pull of what was pulled off with Senator Franken in Minnesota.”

Walker assured Newsmax that Republicans would be “looking very closely” to ensure that does not happen. The key, he said, is to ensure all valid ballots are counted and that no additional ballots are added in.

“And as long as somebody’s not trying to bring in new ballots, I think we’re not going to have what we saw in Minnesota,” Walker told Newsmax.

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