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Wisconsin election officials suddenly interested in recall petition fraud — from last spring on petitions to recall Dem Senator

Wisconsin election officials suddenly interested in recall petition fraud — from last spring on petitions to recall Dem Senator

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board steadfastly refused to disqualify duplicate signatures and clearly fictitious signatures on petitions to recall Scott Walker, and to this day has rejected the efforts of private citizens to bring recall petition fraud to its attention.

But with all the bad publicity regarding fraud in the recall Walker effort, the GAB all of the sudden has taken a keen interest in supposed signature fraud and alleged misleading statements made by petition circulators … regarding petitions submitted last spring as part of the Republican effort to recall “fleebagger” Wisconsin State Senator Robert Wirch.

I covered the Recall Wirch drive in great detail.  It was a grassroots, thinly funded effort which succeeded in obtaining a recall election, although Wirch ultimately won the election.  While the effort ultimately failed, it was well worth the effort as a push back against union and Democratic Party efforts against Republican Senators.

As part of the Recall Wirch drive, numerous dirty tricks were played on behalf of Wirch, including calls from Democratic Party telemarketers trying to get petition signers to say they were misled, and attempts to get valid signatures on recall petitions thrown out.

But now, without warning, two investigators from the GAB have contacted Dan Hunt, who led the Recall Wirch effort and other supporters regarding allegations of a single phony petition signature and alleged misleading statements made to petitions signers.

Media Trackers has details and background:

On Thursday, Media Trackers learned that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board dispatched two investigators to Kenosha to interview circulators involved in the effort to recall Senator Bob Wirch. According to sources, the investigators were asking about recall training, whether individuals were misled, and about the appearance of the late Bill Pocan’s signature on a recall petition.

Spokesman for the Government Accountability Board Reid Magney had no comment indicating that he cannot comment about ongoing investigations.

One year ago this month, the Taxpayer’s to Recall Robert Wirch launched their drive to recall Democratic State Senator Robert Wirch after he and thirteen other Democratic State Senator’s fled Wisconsin to avoid a vote on the Budget Repair Bill. The recall effort collected 17,138 valid signatures to force a recall of Senator Wirch over the 60-day period from February 24, 2011 to April 25, 2011.

During the signature gathering process, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin recklessly alleged “overwhelming evidence” of fraud in the effort to recall Senator Wirch.

The heart of the Democratic Party’s “overwhelming evidence?” A total of twenty affidavits, or 1/10 of 1% of the signatures gathered.

As a Media Trackers article from May 13, 2011 documents, the affidavits were extremely weak and lacked merit….

Despite the weakness of the actual allegations and affidavits, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board has dispatched at least two special investigators to Kenosha to interview those involved in the effort to recall Senator Wirch.

I spoke with Hunt tonight.  Needless to say, he is outraged, and also forwarded me this statement:

As you can imagine, I think this investigation is highly suspicious.  Why now, 10 months after we submitted our petitions and 8 months after the recall was certified? In addition, as you know, I have been an outspoken critic of the GAB. Does this have anything to do with this investigation?  Why are they investigating us now when they are overwhelmed with the current recalls?

I will follow up on this and let you know what happens.

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Comments

I-N-T-I-M-I-D-A-T-I-O-N. This can be the only reason. WE all know that the GAB is in the back pocket of the democrats and union organizers. Why else would they try to provoke a fight. If they were so interested in FRAUD, why haven’t they investigate the fraudulent signatures with regard to the Walker Recall.

BannedbytheGuardian | February 9, 2012 at 8:23 pm

Ahem. A federal register for every registered voter c& address & therefore electoral sopt..

A simple x check of petitions.

Not difficult & not an assault on any liberty .

    With all due respect, you clearly do not live here.

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to WoodnWorld. | February 9, 2012 at 10:55 pm

      I am not wanting respect nor do I need it.

      Why keep complaining about voter fraud year after year decade after decade (century after century?) when the solution is clear & universally accepted.

      Every power has dealt with petitions . Caesar . Czars. Kings . Popes.

        Ahem. Fair enough, let me try another way, let’s see how this approach fits: You don’t know what the hell you are talking about. You neither understand how our elections are run, nor how easily a recall petition, any petition, can be manipulated. Allow me to elaborate. You may not need respect and it may be increasingly hard to offer, but I will try my best.

        A federal register? Do you have any idea just how large we are? How regional/localized some of these efforts are? What it means to have 50 states? To have a federalist model? The 10th Amendment? Caesars, Czars and Kings oh my…

        Oh yes, a simple check of the register. No problem. Great idea. “Let’s see here, Mr. Banned, Mr. Banned… ah, here you are, right here in the register. Oh wait, it says you have already signed this petition/voted, twice.” Never mind the (trifling) fact that there is a vast difference between a citizen and a signature, and a registered voter with a sticker, a smile and good intent and a warm body with an ink pen a smile and ill intent…

        Or, how about this one? I love this one. “No no, no need for identification sir, sign anywhere you want, vote where ever you want…”

        Sure, in Magical Overly Simplistic, Reductivist Theory Land, a little wave of the practical, rational wand will fix everyone’s problems (Ahem. See stupid? SEE how easy that was?) but over here in Reality Land, we have to deal with the system as it is, not the way we want it to be.

        Come on over to the U.S. and force a national registry on the “national” electorate and see how much heart burn you get for the effort. Try and write new rules to make these things less corrupt and see how much you are impeded by the Left-Wingers in America.

BannedbytheGuardian | February 9, 2012 at 8:27 pm

Make that electoral SPOT.

I think it was my first ever systems programming. An old electoral roll disassembled to be presented under tallies.

You have no idea until you live here. Democrats here are shameless and will stop at nothing. I believe Wisconsin is the last state in which openly Socialist politicians have been elected to public office. The “Progressive” ideals still are strong here. As they are defeated, they fight back harder.

It is a microcosm of what is to come nationally.

Yet, it seems to have been present forever in WI. We moved there in 1978 and returned to Minnesota in 1980. While the Whitefish Bay area seemed nice, it’s clear that there was a hierarchy ruling that land; it wasn’t then clear whether that hierarchy was political or simply determined to hold tight to its power.

It was most certain then and seems to be that way now that Walker has messed with the powers that be and they will struggle mightily to prevent his overturning their thing. Realize too that the Milwaukee suffers from wanting to imitate Chicago, which probably slips over into Madison, which prefers to rule and to push down the real center of WI east of Madtown.

    Raquel Pinkbullet in reply to Doug Wright. | February 9, 2012 at 10:46 pm

    I’m sorry but coming from a resident of a state that elected Jesse “the body” Ventua, Al Franken, Mark “nutcase” Dayton (senator and governor), Keith “Muslim Brotherhood” Ellison, is beyond ironic.

    The State bird of Minnesota is the loon, I didn’t know it also explained their state of mind “loons.”

    Tamminator in reply to Doug Wright. | February 9, 2012 at 11:32 pm

    I don’t know if any of you follow this, but the Progressive movement basically STARTED in Wisconsin. In Madison, I believe.
    Glenn Beck did an interesting historical piece about this when he was on FOX.
    Wish I still had the information about it…

Raquel Pinkbullet | February 9, 2012 at 10:39 pm

GAB is filled with FAR LEFT Democrat appointees. So it is nothing but a corrupt arm of the unions and the Wisconsin DemonRAT party.

I wonder how much the unions had to pay for these folks

    Tamminator in reply to Aggie95. | February 9, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    Nothing. Union members are brain dead zombies who don’t give a shit about the rest of the state. They’re all about ME and MINE.

[…] Accountability Board have finally decided to go after fake signatures on recall petitions – sort of. Not any of the bogus signatures on the petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker, but one for the […]

I don’t believe it. Democrats? Lying and cheating? Not possible. They must be social progressives. But not democrats.