Posted on 01/13/2012 7:28:42 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
An extensive court-ordered review of signatures submitted to recall Gov. Scott Walker and five others will take longer than the planned 60 days and require the state to invest $100,000 in new software, the head of the state board charged with that process said Thursday.
Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said it was not clear exactly how much longer the review will take under the more stringent verification process ordered by a judge last week.
With a 60-day review and a primary _ assuming no other delays caused by lawsuits or other action _ the general election would not have taken place until late May. A longer review process could push an election into June or later.
Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators are being targeted for recall by a coalition of groups including organized labor and the Democratic Party. The hope is to have all qualifying recall elections on the same date, but that depends on individual challenges, said GAB spokesman Reid Magney.
Petition organizers are expected to submit an estimated 1.5 million signatures on the six petitions Tuesday. The verification process will start shortly after that.
State law requires the board to complete the review in 31 days, but Kennedy requested more time because of the number of signatures being submitted.
Originally the board said the burden of finding fake and duplicate signatures rested with those targeted for recall. But the state Republican Party and Walker's campaign sued, saying it was the board's responsibility to ferret out duplicates and obviously phony names such as Mickey Mouse. Last week, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Mac Davis agreed and ordered a more detailed review by the board.
Ben Sparks, spokesman for the state Republican Party, said he was encouraged by the enhanced review guidelines.
(Excerpt) Read more at host.madison.com ...
Wsconsin Recall Election Ping
If you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list, just FReep Mail me and it shall be done.
I just got another email from Verify the Recall - a separate organization that is going to verify every signature. they have already designed custom software that volunteers can log into from home and enter the info from the signature so it can be processed for verification. There was an earlier posing asking for volunteers to sign up. We are just finishing a full-scale test of the entire system.
You might wonder if checking the recall signatures will truly make a difference. Well that depends on whether having confidence in our system is important to you. Recently the issue of verifying signatures took on added importance in Indiana. A requirement for qualifying for the ballot in the presidential race in Indiana includes the necessity of acquiring a minimum of 500 signatures on the nomination petition in each of Indiana’s nine congressional districts. The Indiana Democratic Party was found to have engineered a petition fraud scheme in the 2nd District in South Bend designed to place both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the ballot in the primary election.
The conspiracy involved at least seven people who faked over 150 signatures out of the 534 submitted for Obama and an equal number of false signatures for Clinton out of the 704 submitted on her behalf. Among the false signatures is the former Democratic governor Joe Kernan. It appears that one of the required approval signatures on the forms was also faked as the Republican member of the St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office was out on bereavement leave. A stamped signature was used for the board member.
The St. Joseph County Prosecuting Attorney is now investigating with the assistance of the Indiana State Police. Already, the investigation is taking a toll as the St. Joseph County Democratic Party Chair and 2nd District Democratic Party Chair Butch Morgan resigned in October. In December, the scandal claimed the Indiana Democratic Party Chair Dan Parker when he resigned.
The significance of the fraudulent signature scam is that without the falsified signatures, Obama legally did not qualify for the ballot. More importantly, this type of electoral fraud destroys the public’s confidence in our system.
Press Release: “Verify The Recall” Proceeds with Verification Efforts
December 12, 2012
Wisconsin - Project organizers announced this afternoon that “Verify The Recall” is moving forward with its plans to check every signature gathered in the gubernatorial recall process, despite new reports stating that the Government Accountability Board will be checking for duplicate and fraudulent signatures.
Since announcing the project on December 4, 2011, Verify The Recall has successfully built and tested a custom software program that will allow volunteers to enter recall petition data from recall petition PDFs (provided by the GAB) into a secure database. Analysis of the data can then be completed.
Over 8,500 volunteers have signed up to help enter recall data into Verify The Recall’s database, all of whom will be able to complete the data entry process from the comfort of their own home. Due to the sheer size of its volunteer force, Verify The Recall expects to complete the data entry process within two or three days after the recall petition PDFs become available from the GAB.
“The response to Verify The Recall has been extremely positive,” says Ross Brown of We the People of the Republic, co-organizer of Verify The Recall. “The people of Wisconsin are anxious to help ensure the integrity of our election processes. Verify The Recall gives them the opportunity to do so.”
After all recall petition data is entered into Verify The Recall’s database, thorough analysis of the data will ensue.
“Reports today show that the GAB will be checking recall petitions for duplicate signatures, fictitious signatures, and fake names. Verify The Recall’s efforts will go much beyond that,” explains Tim Dake of the Wisconsin of Liberty, co-organizer of Verify The Recall. “Like the GAB, Verify The Recall will be flagging duplicate and fictitious signatures, but we will also be combing through the data to find and flag felons, deceased persons, underage signors, non-logical or non-existent addresses, and much, much more. It will be interesting to compare the results of our findings to those of the GAB.”
Additionally, after hearing concerns from many Wisconsinites who did not sign recall petitions about their names or addresses being fraudulently used on a recall petition, Verify The Recall created the “No Sign Registration” List. Anyone who signs up for this list shall receive notification if their name and/or address is found on a recall petition, at which point the individual can take further action to flag the signature as potentially fraudulent. Over 30,000 Wisconsinites have added their name to the list thus far.
Even after today’s announcement from the GAB, organizers of Verify The Recall are firm in their position of proceeding with the project regardless of what efforts are made by other governmental or partisan groups.
“Verify The Recall was the first statewide effort to announce its intent to check every signature from recall petitions,” explains Ross Brown. “The people of Wisconsin expect us to follow through on our commitment to help secure the integrity of Wisconsin’s election processes. We are confident in our ability - and are fully committed - to meet and exceed those expectations. Our volunteer force is eager to get involved. We are excited to proceed as planned.”
Verify The Recall is an independent, non-partisan efforts led by Tea Party groups in Wisconsin. Additional information about the project can be found online at www.VerifyTheRecall.com.
Verify The Recall is a joint effort between We the People of the Republic and The Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty.
Verify The Recall is a project which is undertaken in an effort to ensure the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections and associated processes. The project is an independent, non-partisan effort. In no way is this project affiliated with, or in communication with, any candidate or public official, or with any campaign. This project does not endorse or oppose any public officials or candidates for public office.
We the People of the Republic is a 501(c)4 non-profit organization and contributions are not tax deductible for income tax purposes.
The Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty is a 501(c)4 non-profit organization and contributions are not tax deductible for income tax purposes.
Thank you to the Wausau Tea Party for supporting Verify The Recall! Their generous donation allowed us to make use of Constant Contact to communicate with our volunteers.
Empowered by True The Vote
I’m in the Verify The Recall group too. I just got the email for testing the software. From what I’ve seen on the sample (?) petitions I’ve seen so far, I’m going to have to checkmark “cannot tell if signature matches name” for nearly half of the entries.
I see where the verification process will obviously detect duplicate names.
I’m just curious if there is a system that would or could detect identical handwriting. A person’s handwriting is almost as distinct as a person’s fingerprints or I would think so.
I realize a handwriting expert would also be needed to verify that indeed there were instances where the same person may have signed as numerous different names.
I sadly realize there are no foolproof methods to prevent all voting irregularities but think harsher penalties would serve as a deterrent.
This is so stupid. It’s time to put the real criminals in jail.
Hopefully Scott Walker will be POTUS.
But isn't that true for a sample of most peoples signatures?
I think the duplicates and false addresses will yield a goldmine of fraud...
Verify the Recall should get in touch with them about their software. I tested it last night and it's easy to use.
If the signature doesn’t appear to match the name, then there needs to be an additional check, like comparing the signature to the one on file either at the precinct where the voter’s registered to vote or the DMV. It would be nice to have copies of the voters’ verified signatures available to compare with their purported signatures on the petitions. I’ve just contributed $200 to the effort to stop the recall.
Your point is correct. The key is to match the questioned signatures to verified signatures, such as DMV signatures and voter registration signatures. IOW there needs to be a master list showing each voter’s proper name, signature, and registred residence for voting purposes.
What are they going to do about fraudulent volunteers that will try to approve improper signatures? Will the software have each one checked by two different volunteers to guard against saboteurs?
Me too. It is pretty easy to use. I am happy to be on board to try to help prevent this travesty. Walker has done exactly as he said he would and he is being targeted for doing his job and having an R after his name.
From the instructions, it seems like each page will be entered multiple times, so that is probably how it will be checked. Also, I don’t know if the project is still open to new volunteers to sign up now, I saw the link to sign up on FR a couple of weeks ago.
I’m working with Verify the Recall as a data entry volunteer. I’m sure that there is still time to sign up, if you are interested. We’ve tested the software to make sure that it works with our individual computers (needs an up-to-date browser), and we’re all set to go.
Not only are we checking the signatures, we shall be checking the GAB.
Yes.
So will those ballots that can’t be determined as matching be “contested” and put aside? What happens with them?
I have no inside information whatsoever, but I have to think that it’s a certainty that Gov. Walker’s folks will be looking at VerifyTheRecall’s results very carefully with the intention of nullifying specifically “flagged” entries.
It is a certainty that VerifyTheRecall will have looked at every single entry; I don’t know if GAB is similarly tasked or if they use some statistical scheme (trickery IMO) of assuming that some sample represents the whole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
