The name Bill Pocan appears in the recall petition against Bob Wirch of Kenosha, one of the Fab-14 Wisconsin senators and one of three up for recall. If the name Pocan sounds familiar, it is because Bill Pocan's son is Democratic State Representative Mark Pocan (78th). This according to JSOnline politics blog.
The problem is that Bill Pocan died 20 years ago.
There's been considerable rumbling in Wisconsin about GOP recall committees bringing in hired guns from out of state, paid by the signature, to canvass voters. This on top of repeated allegations of shots for signatures pretty much lays waste to any notion that the effort to recall the (D) senators of Wisconsin was "grassroots."
The chair of the Wirch recall committee points the finger at Wirch supporters:
Hunt said Democrats chose Pocan because it would bring more attention to the matter, given the prominence of his sons.
This is silly on its face. Recall petition sheets must be signed by the circulator, in this case, a guy named Kevin Pursell. Pursell's signature also appears on other sheets in the Wirch recall document group. If he's a plant by the Democrats, he sure went through a lot of trouble to get names, including putting his own candidate at risk by gathering legitimate signatures against him.
The GOP in this state is getting ready to introduce one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation, pleading their case by talking about massive fraud issues in Milwaukee and Madison, which you all know is the core of Democratic power in Wisconsin. And those of us in Wisconsin who actually read the news instead of getting it all from Charlie Sykes know that the ID proposal is a solution looking for a problem.
If there is a problem, it would seem as though it doesn't lie with the Milwaukee and Madison electorate. The way the GOP recall committees ran their operations, you can expect plenty more stories like this before the verification ends. Book that.