Posted on 01/15/2012 2:09:18 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Madison - State elections officials plan to enter the names of all those who sign recall petitions into a new database - a policy that will add to taxpayer costs and delay until summer when any recall elections would be held.
The decision, announced Thursday, comes after a ruling last week by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis that said the state Government Accountability Board must take steps to search for duplicate names and fictitious names as it reviews petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker that are expected to be filed next week.
"It is a time-consuming and very costly process," the board's elections administrator, Nat Robinson, told the board Thursday.
By law, the board is to decide whether recall elections should be held within 31 days, but it can go to circuit court to seek more time. Kevin Kennedy, the board's director, had previously said he expected to ask a judge for up to 60 days, but on Thursday he said he would need even more time than that but had not yet determined how much.
If the board were able to do its work within 31 days, an election could be held as early as late March, though it would be pushed off until late April if there were a primary. Thursday's developments mean a recall election, if there is a primary, might not happen until June or later.
That also will extend the window during which Walker can raise unlimited sums. Normal campaign limits do not apply while recall signatures are being gathered and state officials review them. Walker took advantage of that to help raise more than $5 million in the second half of last year.
Because of the judge's order, the board is purchasing software that can electronically read printed names that appear on the recall petitions and load the names into a database. Staffers will have to go over the database after the information is loaded because the software will misread some handwriting, officials said.
The software and technical assistance would cost about $100,000, Kennedy said. He pegged the board's overall costs at $900,000 - higher than the $841,000 the board estimated last week.
The state's costs are just a fraction of the overall expense of running recall elections, many of which would fall to local governments. The board estimated last week that a statewide recall would cost taxpayers $9 million or more.
More than 540,000 signatures are needed to recall Walker - 25% of the total votes cast in the November 2010 race for governor. Democrats have said they intend to file far more than that.
In the past, it was left to those facing recall elections to identify signatures that should not be counted toward the recall. That changed with Davis' ruling last week that the board has a duty to do more as it reviews signatures.
Kennedy said he did not expect the board to appeal Davis' decision; Democratic groups trying to recall Walker and other Republicans have already asked an appeals court to stay Davis' court order. But even if that happens, the board will continue with its plan to create the new database, Kennedy said.
"We're planning to continue doing this until the court says stop doing it," he said.
Jeremy Levinson, a lawyer representing the recall organizers, said the accountability board was changing the way it had long handled the review of recall signatures.
Levinson said the board didn't "have much of a backbone" and in forming the database was overreacting to criticism and going beyond what the judge had required in his ruling last week.
"From what I understand, and it's still unfolding, GAB is going beyond what Mac Davis even suggested," Levinson said.
Massive undertaking
Board officials said they expected to receive 125 boxes containing about 300,000 pages of petitions with 1.5 million signatures. Those signatures would be to recall Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau and Sens. Pam Galloway of Wausau, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Van Wanggaard of Racine.
The recall groups are planning to collect signatures through Saturday. The signatures are due the first business day after the collection period ends, which is Tuesday because state offices are closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Fitzgerald filed a complaint with the board Thursday arguing recall signatures against him cannot be collected after Friday. Recall organizers have 60 days to collect signatures, and Friday marks the 60th day after the recall efforts began Nov. 15.
But a memo this week from Assistant Attorney General Lewis Beilin said the 60-day clock did not start ticking until Nov. 16, the day after the recall committees registered with the state. That means they can collect signatures through Saturday, the memo said.
Fitzgerald said that allowing signatures to be collected for 61 days is "just flat out wrong" and that the board should count only 60 days worth of signatures.
"I don't know how much clearer this could be," Fitzgerald said.
If signatures collected Saturday aren't allowed to be included in recalls, it could make a difference in whether Fitzgerald would face a recall election.
Late push planned
Lori Compas, the Fort Atkinson woman who heads that recall effort, said she had counted 16,000 signatures Wednesday morning - just short of the 16,742 needed to force an election.
Compas said volunteers from other Senate recall campaigns, which apparently already have enough signatures, were being diverted to Fitzgerald's district this weekend and were planning a major push for signatures Friday night and Saturday.
The purpose is to build a big enough cushion so that any signatures that Fitzgerald might be able to successfully challenge wouldn't be enough to bring the campaign below the minimum needed.
"If you live in the 13th Senate District, your door is going to be knocked on Friday or Saturday," she said, though she added that some places have already been thoroughly canvassed and won't be hit again.
Once the state receives the signatures in all the recall efforts, the board will transfer them to another state-owned building in Madison that is protected with a gate and barbed wire, Kennedy said. Capitol Police will guard the building around the clock until the petitions have been electronically scanned over a couple of days. After that, officers will be on site whenever board staff is present to review the signatures.
Kennedy declined to name the site where recall petitions will be reviewed while security plans are being worked out, but he said it would become public Tuesday.
The board is hiring up to 50 temporary workers to review the petitions. The board will not hire anyone who signed recall petitions or has donated to a partisan candidate in the last year.
Jason Stein and Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
They'll have to bring in out of state workers. They probably can't find 50 people in this state who haven't done one of those things! s/off
Wisconsin Recall Petition Verification Ping
If you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list, just FReep Mail me and it shall be done.
So, Mickey Mouse and several Pro-Football teams will NOT end up as accepted signatures in favor of the recall?
No doubt the D’s will sue to stop this, can’t have signatures being verified, might screw up their fraud scheme.
NOW these bastards are worrying about the cost? The whole recall will cost millions. How much more could this add?
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