Background:
If you already understand Wisconsin's recall law, skip ahead.
In Wisconsin we have a Governor to recall. Our Governor can't be recalled until one year after taking office. That date will be January 3rd, 2012.
The Wisconsin constitution regards the filing of the petition to demand a recall election to be the first step of the actual recall. Of course there are a lot of steps before that, but those seem to be considered preparatory work. I suspect it is a throwback from a time when there were a lot less people and bureaucracy.
Of course the steps beforehand is the petition collection and requirements. The state of Wisconsin requires the organizer to register and file a statement of intent. Then all of the petitions have to meet state specifications, which is fairly easy. Only now will the petition be considered valid if circulated.
All petitions have to be signed and dated within 60 days of filing the petition. If filed on January 3rd,2012, the earliest signature date would be November 5th 2011. There is some debate if the petition can be circulated that weekend or if we have to wait for the GAB to open November 7th.
ASAP petition collection is November 5, 2011 at the earliest. You would think that there would be a flurry of activity preparing for this across dozens of organizations. If there is I haven't noticed it. The some groups might be planning behind closed doors, but there isn't much activity publicly.
Personally I don't like this situation. Apparently there are a lot of people who agree with me. Trying to fill that void is a Facebook group Grassroots People to Recall Gov. Walker. They don't have much. They can use some help with the language and formatting of the announcements they make. They should expand past Facebook. But they do have a signup event, and are setting up groups for various areas around the state. So far they have 5500 people invited and over 800 on the attending list after 1 week of advertising.
And the group is growing. In fits and spurts people invite their friends and family. At times the increases stop and at others the attending list increases a few dozen a minute.
And they have a plan. Gather 10 to 15 thousand people and spend a few weeks organizing them. Then hold a starting event such as a 100 thousand gathering at Madison and send all volunteers home to gather petitions from their friends and family. Signup people to work signing stations everywhere.
And hope with 10,000 or more volunteers can manage close to 100 signatures average a piece.
I think it would be wonderful if a group like this manages to pull off that size of recall petition. With some logistic support from a lot of other groups, it might be feasible.
So my opinion is give them a bit of support and see where we can go. The first step is signing up 10 thousand people.