GAB Won't Verify Signatures

The Government Accountability Board is a disgrace.

From MacIver News Service:

Citizens not affiliated with either the recall organizations or the office holders targeted for recall this spring have found scores of problems with the petitions, but Wisconsin’s elections watchdogs have decided they will not consider any of their evidence.

GAB Director and General Counsel Kevin Kennedy said there is no process in place for accepting information from outside groups and individuals. Governor Scott Walker and the four Republican state senators against whom recall petitions were filed last month are the only parties that can contest the validity of signatures, according to Kennedy.

The GAB will not investigate or consider independently-submitted evidence of recall petition fraud. This includes circumstances wherein individuals might notify the board that their own name and forged signature were submitted.

According to the GAB, anyone concerned that their signature was fraudulently included on a recall petition, therefore, must notify not the GAB, but rather the target of the recall. In addition, they must do so by the challenge deadline if they want that signature reviewed and ultimately, possibly, struck.

Can you imagine what the outcry would be like if a board stacked with Republicans issued such a declaration?

Good grief. The shouts of "SHAME, SHAME, SHAME" would echo well beyond the borders of Wisconsin.

The GAB is so wrong on this.

Obviously, it's not an "ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD" at all.

Truly disgraceful.


________________

Mark Belling took time out of his cruise to release this statement on the "Government Accountability Board Refusing To Do Its Job":

In all my years of following Wisconsin politics, the decision by the Jim Doyle-appointed "judges" on the Government Accountability Board is the biggest disgrace I have ever seen. The GAB is making up the law as it goes along in attempt to put the fix in for the Democrat Party. The Board's statement that it will not attempt to verify petition signatures is outrageous enough. It's like a police department saying it won't investigate murder. But the board went on to say it will not accept challenges from the Verify The Recall group or, for that matter, anyone else.

This decision reflects on the lack of character of the members of the board. A
Wisconsin citizen who finds thast his/her name is wrongly signed on a recall petition now has literally no recourse. Further, since, by law, Verify The Recall cannot coordinate its efforts with Governor Walker's campaign, it will not be able to share the information it has dug up. The GAB executive director, Kevin Kennedy, is a longtime Madison hack whose tenure at the State Board of Election was filled with one outrage after another. But he, and the board he reports to, are outdoing themselves here. These recall petitions are ridiculed with fraud which is precisely why the Doyle-appointed GAB won't do anything about it.

Now we know what it was like to live under Stalin, or in Iran.

------Mark Belling

February 7, 2012