Democratic Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin has reportedly asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to start a federal investigation into the questionable handling of voting records and the tactics used to count them by the state's Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Wisconsin's Supreme Court contest has been seen by many as a referendum on the politics of Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and close to 1.5 million voters -- an unprecedented amount -- turned out. Holder is currently looking into it.Initial results of Wisconsin's April 5 election for the Supreme Court seat, which pitted its current conservative incumbent Republican Justice David Prosser against progressive candidate Democratic District Attorney JoAnne Kloppenburg, showed Kloppenburg winning by 204 votes, and a recount was almost certain. Two days later, Nickolaus, who used to work for Prosser , held a press conference claiming that she had forgotten to report votes of the city of Brookfield, giving Prosser a 7,500 vote advantage and flipping the election results.Nickolaus, a former Republican legislative aide who once worked with Prosser, claimed that she found more than 14,000 votes from Brookfield County which weren’t in the original county totals because of her “human error.” The developments in Waukesha County have been greeted with widespread skepticism by Kloppenburg backers. Under the circumstances, and given Nickolaus' history of questionable and secretive tactics in counting votes, Federal intervention may be warranted. As noted by Common Dreams, Federal authorities frequently step in when there are questions about whether an election was conducted properly and cannot trust election results. So far, Nickolaus's computers have not been examined for emails that would explain her actions or for the accuracy of her private record keeping.There have been many questions raised by Nickolaus’s actions because she has a history of making mistakes that benefit the Republican Party : In 2001 she received immunity from prosecution in the criminal investigation of the Republican Caucus’s illegal campaigning on state time in exchange for her testimony; was one of two database experts for Assembly Republicans, spending 13 years becoming one of the state’s leading partisan experts on manipulating voter data; has been chastised for questionable, secretive tactics in the past, including keeping public records on her personal computer; and was in charge of developing a computer program that “averaged the performance of Republicans in all statewide races for the previous eight years in each ward and then averaged that information for each city, township, county and district,” raising more questions about her “human error” claim. Kloppenburg and her supporters are demanding a Federal investigation and a recount. Prosser and his supporters do not want a Federal investigation and are open to a Waukesha County only-recount. Under the circumstances, a statewide hand count may be warranted.In Wisconsin, the term recount is a little misleading. Many of the ballots are not counted by hand. Paper ballots are run through optical scan machines made by Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, and Populex. Machines made by those companies have proved to be easily manipulated, but nobody actually bothers to check them. Under Wisconsin law, you can't have a hand count unless you go to court and get a court ordered examination of the ballots.Congresswoman Baldwin wrote (PDF) "For our democracy to endure, we, the people, must have faith in its laws and system of justice, including faith that our elections for public office are fair and free from any manipulation or tampering" to Holder. “Following this week's election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, numerous constituents have contacted me expressing serious doubt that this election was a free and fair one. They fear, as I do, that political interests are manipulating the results." Baldwin sent her letter to Holder on Friday evening.Congresswoman Baldwin noted in her letter to Holder that this is not the first time Nickolaus has caused controversy with regard to her management of elections: “The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that last year (that) Waukesha County officials raised objections to Nickolaus’ practice of storing election data on computers in her office rather than on the county’s computer network. Nickolaus said this practice was aimed at keeping the data more secure. However, this practice prevented the county's information technology specialists from verifying the system was fail-safe, the county’s director of administration said at the time. Auditors later recommended that Nickolaus improve security and backup procedures.” Baldwin's letter methodically states the facts that reveal the need for outside intervention.Watchdog groups in Wisconsin have also demanded an outside investigation into the April 5 Wisconsin elections to ensure that the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is free, fair and transparent, and to uphold faith in democracy. Baldwin borrowed from some of the watchdog group demands, urging Holder to immediately assign the Justice Department Public Integrity Section, which oversees the federal prosecution of election crimes, to investigate Nickolaus's handling of vote records in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (GAB) will look into Nickolaus's actions. If holder fills Baldwin's request, lawyers from the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section will work with the Wisconsin GAB to make sure that ballots from Waukesha -- and other contested counties -- are properly preserved and reviewed. Computers used by Nickolaus and other Waukesha County officials, as well as any communications between Nickolaus and outside players with an interest in the outcome of Wisconsin's elections, could also be examined.Prosser and his crew are calling the idea of a Federal probe into Nickolaus's actions "preposterous." Given Nickolaus's previous history of working for Prosser, and of manipulating the results of several elections, the idea is not preposterous at all. A review by the Wisconsin GAB and the DoJ should serve as a prelude for a statewide recount that would review every ballot and all the machines used to tabulate the votes.