Wisconsin court candidates hire Bush and Franken’s recount lawyers

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Though neither of the candidates in the Wisconsin Supreme Court justice race, JoAnne Kloppenburg and incumbent David Prosser, have officially called for a recount, state officials and the candidates themselves are preparing for one. Kloppenburg’s campaign staff has set up a fund, the Kloppenburg for Justice Committee, to pay legal fees for the battle to come, and hired the lawyer who represented Sen. Al Franken during the recount to determine his senate seat. Prosser has hired the lawyer who spearheaded the Bush-Gore recount.

Kloppenburg declared victory by a 204-vote margin Wednesday, but late Thursday, an election clerk announced that there had been an error at the polls, and that Prosser had garnered an additional 7,000 votes.

The State Column reports that since the margin of victory in the election, in which nearly 1.5 million votes were cast, is less than 1 percent, a call for recount is expected. The Journal-Sentinel reports that it would be the state’s first recount effort in 20 years, and fundraising rules are unclear.

Brian Nemoir, Prosser’s campaign director, told the Journal-Sentinel that he had been through about 10 recounts in his political career, but none involving a statewide race.

“There’s no playbook for this,” he said.

A Kloppenburg aide said that they had already filed the necessary documents to investigate how the 7,000 votes for Prosser suddenly surfaced.