What does it mean that 24 of the 3630 precincts have not yet reported their votes in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?

The polls closed 12 hours ago, and the race has been really tight all along as results came in. Right now Prosser holds a slim lead, with 736,878, over Kloppenburg's 736,043. That's a mere 835 votes.

At the link, you can scan the list to find the counties that haven't reported all their precincts and see which candidate is favored in the precincts that have reported. For example, Ashland has 6 precinct that haven't reported, but in the 22 that have reported, Kloppenburg did much better than Prosser, 71% to 29%. If you assume the precincts are equal in population and the 71-29% split remains intact, Kloppenburg should decrease Prosser's lead by 405 votes when Ashland comes in.

There's one more precinct in Madison's Dane County. You can try to calculate what that precinct should be, using the 73-27% difference between the candidates in the 248 precincts that have reported, but I'd like to know what part of town the nonreporting precinct is in. More important, I'd like to know why that one precinct hasn't reported, because, without more, I'm suspicious that politicos with a "by any means necessary" attitude are waiting to see how many votes are needed.

What security do we have that these votes are being handled properly? With the vote so close, and the number needed to close the gap right there for all to see, it's hard to believe that nobody's going to cheat.

This race has been so politicized that, whether Prosser or Kloppenburg wins, the public will lack faith in the work of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Every 4-3 decision — assuming the winner of this election is one of the 4 — will raise suspicion. The power of the court, in the end, rests on the faith of the people. It cannot balance the power of the other branches of government without the faith that this election has eroded.

This is why I think a Kloppenburg victory will be a disaster. Her supporters and her opponents expect her to vote to undo the legislation of the Republican majority that won decisively in the November election. If she proceeds to decide cases that way, people — including her supporters — won't believe that her vote was properly judicial, and the decision against the legislation will look like the court abused its power. How then will the court retain its prestige? If the people do not believe that the court is a court, then we will not have a workable system of separated powers in our state government.

UPDATE: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

As of 9:45 this morning, the Associated Press had results for all but 7 of the state's 3,630 precincts and Kloppenburg had taken a 140 vote lead after Prosser had been ahead most of the night by less than 1,000 votes.

That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of a recount, which Wisconsin has avoided in statewide races in recent decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits - litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court.