This is not surprising, given the circumstances, but the investigation is likely to take weeks. Separate filings by Kolppenburg's camp have requested all relevant records be reviewed by an "independent" panel. Of course, it won't matter how many investigations are conducted by independent entities, the left will continue to wail about another "stolen" election.

The investigation will be carried out by the Government Accountability Board:

Michael Haas, Government Accountability Board staff attorney, told Reuters on Friday the watchdog agency was looking into vote tabulation errors in Republican-leaning Waukesha County which gave the conservative incumbent a net gain of more than 7,000 votes -- a lead his union-backed challenger seems unlikely to surmount.

"We're going to do a review of the procedures and the records in Waukesha before we certify the statewide results," Haas said.

"It's not that we necessarily expect to find anything criminal. But we want to make sure the public has confidence in the results,"

Unofficial returns in the statewide race had given the challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, a narrow 204 vote statewide lead over David Prosser, a former Republican legislator.

But late Thursday, the top vote counter in Waukesha County said votes she had failed to report in earlier totals resulted in a net gain of 7,582 votes for Prosser in the county.

County Clerk Nickolaus will have a lot to answer for as far as her procedures are concerned. But it is extremely doubtful that the actual vote totals from the county will change much. Even Democrats are admitting that the error, although indicating incompetence, was innocent in that the votes actually exist and were not manufactured on election night or after.