The statewide recount of state Supreme Court election ballots had a rough start Wednesday as officials in Waukesha County had difficulty identifying ballot bags and absentee ballots.
Confusion began around 11 a.m. at the Waukesha County Administration Center when identification numbers on a ballot bag did not correlate with those on the election inspector's official list, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Officials and representatives of both candidates agreed to open the bag and to proceed with tallying.
County canvassers later had trouble with illegible absentee ballot applications and an absentee ballot that ballot-reading machines were unable to read. The ballots were tabulated after being matched up with absentee application records from town hall, according to the Journal-Sentinel.
The Waukesha County Clerk's Office did not respond to inquiries about the details of the recount issues.
Earlier in the year, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus garnered criticism after failing to include results from Brookfield in election night tallies.
On Tuesday, Nickolaus recused herself from overseeing the ballot recount in Waukesha and was replaced with retired Judge Robert Mawdsley.
Officials recounted nearly 37,000 ballots Wednesday, according to the Journal-Sentinel.
At day's end, current state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was leading JoAnne Kloppenburg by around 2,000 votes.
Roughly 1.4 million ballots remain to be counted by the statutory May 9 recount deadline.
