Expensive software will help find fake and duplicative signatures on recall petitions. The Government Accountability Board will buy the tools needed to comply with the orders of a Waukesha County judge, who last week said the state elections agency must carefully search for improper recall signatures and delete them, rather than putting the burden on Governor Scott Walker and others targeted for recall. That review process will be time consuming, taking more than the planned 60 days.
Jeremy Levinson is a lawyer representing the recall organizers. “You know as long as the process is reliable and most importantly as long as it is as prompt as the statute requires, it doesn’t concern us.”
However, Levinson worries the GAB might be “accidentally” helping the Republicans to delay the inevitable. He says 60 days seems reasonable. “It is a little disturbing that the GAB has decided to change the rules one or two business days before we files things things.”
The software and technical assistance necessary for reviewing an expected 1.5 million recall signatures, and weeding out names like Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler, would cost nearly $100,000.
Tuesday is the deadline for filing the signatures to try to force elections against Governor Scott Walker, Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau, and three other Republican senators — Pam Galloway of Wausau, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Van Wanggaard of Racine.
