Wisconsin Democrats, who have been waging a campaign to recall Republican state senators and take a majority back in the chamber, are now firing back at the Republican counter-campaigns to recall the Dems. On a conference call with reporters on Thursday morning, state Dem chair Mike Tate and attorney Jeremy Levinson predicted that they would able to successfully challenge the validity of much of the signature-gathering effort by Republicans -- which Tate repeatedly called a "racket."
TPM
Also, Levinson said that Democrats would not even necessarily have to scrutinize all the individual signatures, looking for ones to disqualify. "We know as fact that they have had people circulating signatures who are legally prohibited from doing so. Those signatures should all be tossed," said Levinson, also adding: "To circulate a petition, you either need to be a qualified elector [voter] in wisconsin or eligible to be a qualified elector in Wisconsin."
Remember Walker et al talking about out-of-state protesters? Consider this, then.
In particular, Tate said that the Republicans brought in paid signature gatherers from out of state, who were paid on a per-signature basis, and that some of these gatherers had criminal records.
The issue previously came to a head in late March and early April, when one of the state GOP's canvassers, a Colorado man with a criminal record, was fired after he was accused of stealing a backpack containing a couple's keys and cell phones from Lambeau Field, the home football stadium of the Green Bay Packers.
So it appears that under Wisconsin law importing people from out of state to collect petition signatures is illegal. And of course, Walker being as popular as a fart in an elevator means that Astroturf was the only chance the GOP had.
Throwing out whole batches petitions because of the signature collector is much more efficient than going through petitions a page at a time challenging individual signatures.
Thus far it is Democrats 5, Republicans 0, and the Republicans are going to have trouble getting off the zed if they have to rely on volunteers from within Wisconsin. Furthermore, the Democrats say they have allegations of outright fraud by signature collectors.
In addition, Tate said that the Dems had stories on hand of people being misled into signing: "We've had people lying saying this is in support of [Democratic state Sen.] Dave Hansen, not to recall Dave Hansen. There are going to be examples of these mercenaries who are paid to collect as many signatures as possible, not valid signatures."
So, for the Wisconsin GOP and especially One Year Walker, let me add this.
And she's not alone.