Wisconsin Pols Jettison Voter Intent, Republicans Say They're "Very Pleased"

Update - The rejection of a petition to order a hand recount does not offer high hopes for the intent and liberty interests of Wisconsin voters seeing elections as a means of protecting their interests.

Jill Stein, joined by the Hillary Clinton campaign, sought a judicial order in state district court, mandating a hand recount in the Wisconsin presidential recount.

The campaigns want voter intent to guide the recount, are vigilant against election shenanigans, and call for a rigorous, precise hand recount to verify the 2016 presidential election results.

This week political appointees in the newly politicized Wisconsin Elections Commission joined the Chair who declared his personal knowledge of the recount results prior to the inception in a bizarre statement.

Chair Mark Thomsen also joined a unanimous six-member Commission, and rejected the Stein-Clinton call for a hand recount.

Neither election bureaucrats nor Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn are impressed with arguments appealing to the liberty interests of voters.

Report Mark Sommerhauser and Matthew DeFour in the Wisconsin State Journal this morning: "Clinton’s attorney, Josh Kaul, wrote in a memo to the court that a hand recount is 'preferable to a machine recount because human beings can assess voter intent in a way that machines cannot.'"

Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, upholding the partisan Commission decision, says more evidence is needed to order a statewide hand recount over the decision of the Commission, without addressing whether voter intent remains a paramount principle underlying Wisconsin election law.

Wisconsin Republicans immediately praised the decision, saying the Republican Wisconsin Dept of Justice is "very pleased" with the ruling. Republicans want blood though.

Today, the Republican Party of Wisconsin said it will "file a federal elections complaint against both Stein and Democrat Hillary Clinton," (Stein, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), a complaint widely viewed as a PR stunt.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin press neglects noting the liberty interests of citizens as a check on bureaucracy and partisanship even as the foundational basis of Wisconsin democracy is disregarded in the partisan Elections Commission.

The Green Bay Press Gazette, a Republican paper in northeastern Wisconsin, misreports recount costs that will be spent by the Stein campaign as tax-payer dollars. This is factually incorrect, but representative of the USA Today-Gannett Co newspapers dominating Wisconsin media.