Supreme Court candidates agree to partial hand recount

By: Associated Press//April 21, 2011//

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Justice David Prosser speaks at the Assembly Chambers at the state Capitol in Madison on Monday. Both Prosser and his challenger for the Supreme Court, JoAnne Kloppenburg. (AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, Steve Apps) — Justice David Prosser speaks at the Assembly Chambers at the state Capitol in Madison on Monday. Both Prosser and his challenger for the Supreme Court, JoAnne Kloppenburg, have agreed to a partial hand recount in several dozen counties. (AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, Steve Apps)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg have agreed to a partial hand recount in several dozen counties.

Kloppenburg told state election officials on Wednesday she wants a statewide recount after county tallies showed she lost to Prosser by 7,316 votes.

State law requires precincts that used electronic voting machines to count votes the first time to use them again in a recount.

However, state election officials say precincts across 31 counties filled their machines’ memory cartridges and replacement cartridges are no longer being manufactured. They asked a Madison judge for permission to reuse the existing cartridges in the recount, even though that would mean the original data would be erased.

But Kloppenburg and Prosser’s campaigns agreed in court conduct the recount in those precincts by hand.