I work in a newsroom in Green Bay, and today I got a press release that was so full of good old fashioned smackdown that I felt compelled to share it with my fellow Kossacks.
As you may know the Uber evil Majority Leader Fitzgerald is claiming to have more than enough challenges to his recall petition to stop it dead in it's tracks.
For the blow by blow takedown, follow me below the Satanic squiggle.
Highlights of Bogus Republican Challenges
Madison - Within the first hour of examining Majority Leader Fitzgerald challenges, not only is it clear he fails to challenge enough signatures to stop the recall, but the challenges he does make are due to his own data entry errors or boldface lies in an attempt to waste GAB’s time and taxpayer money double checking his work.
“If Majority Leader Fitzgerald isn’t even capable of counting to 20,600 signatures, how is it we can trust him with a $60 billion budget? His complete lack of understanding of election law while also holding the highest post in the state senate is also incredibly disconcerting. No wonder his recent election law bills, redistricting maps, and other laws are currently being challenged in court,” said Zac Kramer, Executive Director for the State Senate Democratic Committee
“It is clear after all of his blustering for days about duplicates and ‘fake addresses’, the real problem is he simply failed at proper data entry of the signatures. He has made some very harsh accusations against the hardworking grassroots activists based on his desperate attempts to save his seat, and I think he owes everyone an apology,” Kramer Continued.
Examples of False Accusations
•Majority Leader Fitzgerald claimed in this news story he found people who signed 5 to 7 times
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•http://www.wkow.com/...
•Despite all his ranting, he failed to provide evidence of any duplicate name that appears more than once, and the cases where Majority Leader Fitzgerald claims duplicates are simply data entry errors on his part.
•Challenged signatures as invalid because the signers or circulators aren’t registered voters… Despite the fact the law clearly states you need not be a registered voter to sign or circulate, merely eligible to vote
•Challenges several signatures because the circulator, in a hurry, accidentally spelled their state as “Winsconsin” as if somehow that is enough to disqualify the voice of a constituent
•Double Data entry errors on Majority Leader Fitzgerald’s end inflated his challenge numbers
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•For example, he challenges twice in his excel file of challenges as missing an apartment number.
•Majority Leader Fitzgerald challenges the the same address many times as ‘not a resident of SD 13’ under the ‘new maps’
•There are over 85 instances of this “double data entered challenged error” discovered within the first hour of review.
•Challenge duplicates for having similar names, despite the fact of the “Junior / Senior” issue.
•Bold Face lies about missing information on the page. Claims the pages/lines are missing information, despite a clear examination of the page shows the information is present
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•Claims the Municipalities are missing, despite being present when you look at the actual page:
•Nearly 1300 challenges are due to circulators properly adding missing information to the form (such as missing municipality or street name) as not only the statutes allow, but GAB requests circulators do in order to make the petition more complete.
•He challenges nearly 6,000 signatures as being invalid because they are outside the district under the ‘new’ redistricted maps, despite the fact that the DOJ and GAB have both already stated that the current maps are the appropriate maps for recall.
•876 challenges are of signatures dated 11-15-2011, which they allege is outside the valid circulation date. They are not.
All of these errors and falsehoods were discovered within the first hour of review of Majority Leader Fitzgerald’s so-called challenges. There is no doubt that the recall will proceed since not enough signatures have been challenged to stop the recalls. All four senate challenges after review fail to challenge enough signatures once you exclude the the already settled bogus legal arguments.
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They think if they can slow it down long enough, the carpetbombing of Koch&Co. ads will change minds. They are wrong. They try and convince people it's a waste of time, yet they do their best to make it more costlly every step of the way.
A day of reckoning is coming here in Wisconsin!