Wisconsin Governor Will Not Challenge Recall Petitions

 February 28, 2012

Governor Walker had until the end of the day on Monday to contest signatures, but there was not enough time to properly review the petitions for duplications and fraudulent names.

The Government Accountability Board, which oversees Wisconsin elections, has until March 19 to rule whether enough signatures are valid to trigger an election involving the governor. Of the 152,000 pages of signatures filed in January by those who hope to recall Governor Walker from office, there were addresses of signers turning up as vacant lots and the unquestionably fraudulent signatures of Donald Duck and Adolf Hitler. Apparently even Scott Walker signed his own recall petition nine times. Other interesting findings include:

• More than 4,700 signatures on the Walker Recall were from out of state
• Nearly 15,000 signatures came from dates outside the recall window
• A signature by Donald Duck.  Mr. Duck’s address is a Starbucks in Appleton
• More than 5,000 duplicate signatures
• Officials  have identified more than 228,000 additional signatures that, they say, merit investigation.

Republicans say plenty of errors were discovered, but volunteers were only able to fully review 400,000 signatures in the time allotted. Out of those reviewed it highlighted numerous mistakes. The review board found between a 10 and 20 percent error rate in those signatures.

Walker’s campaign had sought two additional weeks to complete its review. That request was denied by the courts.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin meanwhile released its first anti-Walker commercial. They chose to focus not on the budget repair bill that prompted the recall in the first place, but the John Doe investigation surrounding some of Walker’s former staffers and associates when he was the Milwaukee County Executive. The ad compares Walker to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.

Walker has denied any wrongdoing and says he’s cooperating with the investigation.

A link to view the “Walkergate” commercial is below. Feel free to post your thoughts about possible similarities between Scott Walker and Richard Nixon.

http://youtu.be/TwpFq1urK7c

---