The worst thing about the internet is also the best thing: It's so big and so diverse that, information, once it's out, it's
out. And the more places that the information is sent to, the better the trail is of what happened.
Take, for example, the recent elections in Wisconsin and the controversy surrounding the reporting (or not reporting) of the Brookfield votes. The votes didn't get reported to the state or to the AP (who is responsible for reporting them to all the other news outlets). So when they were counted
days later during the canvass and because it
changed the winner of the race there was an understandable skepticism around the votes.
"If they weren't reported anywhere," the questions goes, "how do we know that they are valid?"
Well, you could look at the voting statistics. Without the 14,000 unreported votes, Waukesa and Bookfield are statistical anomalies. Their voters turn out is much less than the surrounding communities and is not inline with voter turnout from the past elections. Plus the outcome of the votes is consistent with the political make up of the community and the surrounding community.
But there is still this:
"If they weren't reported anywhere, how do we know that they are valid?"The answer is: They were reported.
The night of the election, the
City of Brookfield's clerk sent the vote tallies for the city (the ones missing from the votes reported to the AP) directly to the
Brookfield Patch. The Brookfield Patch posted those numbers. It was the
Waukesha County clerk that sent the incomplete information to the State and AP.
You can read the Brookfield Patch's stories on this, just to get a timeline. The first article was posted on April 6,
Brookfield Gives Prosser Nearly 11K Votes. The author of the piece,
Lisa Sink (also the editor of the news site), explains what happens in a comment:
I posted this article and chart at 12:24 a.m. on election night, using data handed to me from the City of Brookfield clerk's office, not from Waukesha County. Lots of confusion about this. This came straight from the city ON election night. These are the results County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said today that she failed to properly save and include in the countywide total she released to AP on election night.
They posted another piece on it the next day,
Prosser Picks Up 7,500-plus Votes in Waukesha County Clerk Snafu explaining once again that The Patch (as well as the City of Brookfield's web site) reported those votes
the night of the election.
So whatever FUBAR happened with the Waukesha County Clerk that messed up their reporting of the votes to the state and AP,
the votes were reported. They were recorded, saved, posted to the internet and sent to a news outlet.
There is a "paper tail". The information was put on the web and it's there, now. There is proof, verifiable, if you follow what was posted.
That's the glory of the internet. And a lesson for all vote reporting in the future: Post the election results, sent out the totals to more than one place. You want transparency? You want accountability? Then share the data. Put it out.
That's the power of the internet, after all.
--For those who need to know these things, the Brookfield Patch is part of
Huffington Post's drive to provide a strong news voice for communities that are otherwise underserved or overlooked by major media sources. Seems they struck gold with Brookfield.
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