One Million Recall Signatures in Wisconsin
A citizen from one of the state’s 72 counties carries in a box of recall petitions on Tuesday. Photos courtesy of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Amid cheering crowds and a band, members of United Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Democratic Party carried bank boxes full of recall petitions into the Madison headquarters of the Government Accountability Board.
Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Graeme Zielinski said the petition organizers presented approximately 1.9 million signatures to the GAB, to trigger recalls against Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators.
“This is a great day for democracy in Wisconsin and a bad day for Scott Walker and his corporate masters who thought they could buy our state and destroy our middle class,” Zielinski said.
More than 1 million signatures were on petitions to recall Walker, and 845,000 to recall Kleefisch. Not all of the 1.9 million signatures represent separate individuals; some signed petitions for more than one office holder.
In addition to Walker and Kleefisch, organizers handed in petitions to recall State Senators Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), Pam Galloway (R-Wausau) and Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls).
Kevin Kennedy, the director of the GAB, spoke to the press following the petition drop off. He said the petitions were being held at a secure location in Madison and workers will begin scanning each petition sheet as early as Tuesday evening.
He said those scans, in .pdf form, will be available to the public on the GAB website – gab.wi.gov – by the end of this week.
Kennedy said the security of the petitions and the GAB personnel who are scanning and creating the court-mandated database of signatures is of utmost importance to him and the Capitol police. The public can also watch the process via streaming video, which will also be available on the website.
Kennedy added that the officeholder will be provided with the scanned petitions and have the ability to file challenges over invalid signatures. He said any individual who finds their name fraudulently on a petition should contact the officeholder to challenge the signature, since there is no procedure set up for individuals to contest petitions.
Questions as to how long an extension the GAB would seek from the courts if the mandated 31 days is insufficient to complete the review process or when the actual recall election would be held went unanswered.
Kennedy said the process would take longer than expected since the recall organizers handed in more signatures than expected and the GAB was unable to hire enough people to work on the process.
“The reviewers have to meet the same criteria as GAB staff. We advised staffing agencies that no one that signed a petition or made a partisan campaign contribution could be considered for hire,” Kennedy said. “We only hired 30, not the 50 wanted, because it was hard to find people who hadn’t signed a petition in Madison.”
