Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board is getting a black eye on the national stage.
WISN's story about the signing of recall Scott Walker petitions multiple times is getting coverage across the country.
A man told 12 News that he has signed as many as 80 petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker.
The man had the following exchange with 12 News' Kent Wainscott on Thursday:
Man: "I think I signed about 80 times."
Wainscott: "You've signed 80 petitions, you think?"
Man: "I signed a lot of them for the past two weeks. I've been seeing them at the Grand Avenue Mall. Out here by Pick 'n Save and stuff like that."
Wainscott: "Well, you know they're only going to count one of your signatures?"
Man: "Oh well. Whatever it takes to get Scott Walker out of here, I'm happy."
Wainscott: "That means signing repeatedly?"
Man: "Yeah. They cheated for Bush, so hey, I'm going to cheat to get Scott Walker out of here."
Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board in Madison polices the recall process. The Board's director said the legality of signing multiple petitions really comes down to intent.
"If a person is signing this with the intent of artificially inflating the number of signatures that are going to be turned in, or if they're signing it to argue these petitions are riddled with fraud, because anybody can do this, then they're committing fraud on the process," said Director Kevin Kennedy.
So, if someone signs a recall petition but later worries that petition might not be legit, he or she can sign another one. That's different from signing dozens of different petitions, hoping to sneak in some extra signatures, according to the director.
The latter is a practice the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said it discourages. The party's spokesman said people should sign only one petition, and he said he had not heard of any other cases of people signing dozens of petitions.
"Well, these are not credible people. They either have mental illnesses or they're up to no good," said Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "They're up to criminal activity, and if they are up to criminal activity, they should be prosecuted."
...The Democrats said they're working to weed out repeat signatures before submitting them to the GAB. The Board may not necessarily catch the duplicates.
The GAB director said, according to state law, it's up to the officeholder to catch duplicates. So, in this case, it will be up to Walker's campaign and Republicans to catch any duplicate recall signatures turned in.
Yeah, right. The Democrats are working to weed out repeat signatures. Sure.
Zielinski just called this man mentally ill or "up to no good."
That's not very nice of Zielinski to go on the record disparaging one of his good soldiers. Does Zielinski consider union members mentally ill? I think Wisconsin has a serious outbreak of mental illness.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin issued this press release:
WISN Channel 12 has reported breaking news regarding claims that a man has signed the recall Walker petitions 80 times.
This update comes on the heels of the Government Accountability Board readily admitting they have no process in place by which to check and discard duplicate signatures. Rather, the GAB said the burden of checking for duplicate signatures will fall upon Governor Walker. At the same time, the GAB has stated that the union special-interests collecting the recall petitions will be expected to self-police the collection of duplicate signatures. As of yet, Democrat and pro-labor organizations affiliated with the recall effort have not disclosed a process to identify and discard duplicate signatures.
"This type of behavior calls the entire recall process into question," said Ben Sparks, Communications Director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin. "Incidents such as this are exactly why we formed the Recall Integrity Center, which is a website that allows individuals to report instances of misconduct and fraud. The issue of duplicate signatures is a recurring problem that needs to be addressed, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin will be looking into the matter further."
Liberal interest groups affiliated with the recall effort have actively encouraged individuals to sign the recall petitions multiple times. One Wisconsin Now, a liberal non-profit, pushed a memo that actively encouraged this type of behavior from petition circulators.
"It's a little too late for the Democrats to say they don't condone this type of behavior," Sparks continued, "when activists affiliated with the recall effort are actively encouraging individuals to sign the recall petitions more than once. Liberal special-interests have shown they are willing to stoop to any level to force this recall effort on Wisconsin families, who elected Governor Walker with an overwhelming majority."
The recall effort is an embarrasment.
The Democrat Party of Wisconsin is an embarrassment.
The GAB is an embarrassment.
People are encouraged to sign recall petitions early and often. There are no consequences for wrongdoing committed by opponents of Scott Walker.
Here's video from WISN, via Breitbart:
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