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Madison, Wisc…] If there is a statewide recall election this year, it could cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $9 million according to a new report issued Friday. State Representative Robin Vos (R-Rochester) requested the information from the Government Accountability Board. The GAB memo was sent to Vos this afternoon. “It’s about time taxpayers learned the cost of these unnecessary recall elections,” said Vos.”The citizens of Wisconsin should have known the estimated cost on local governments before a single petition was circulated.” The figures released does not account for possible primary elections which would drive up the costs significantly by the...

judge ruled Thursday that the state Government Accountability Board needs to take more aggressive action to vet recall signatures that are expected to be submitted in two weeks against Gov. Scott Walker and other Republican office holders. The ruling by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis came in a case filed Dec. 15 by Walker's campaign committee and Stephan Thompson, executive director of the state Republican Party, asking Davis to order the accountability board to seek out and eliminate duplicate and fictitious signatures and illegible addresses in recall petitions. Davis, who refused to enter injunctions in the case, based...

A client at a local temp agency was a little put off that signing a recall petition made her ineligible for an $8.75-an-hour clerk job with the state. The client, who didn't want to talk on the record and whose husband contacted The Capital Times, didn't know if that was policy for all state jobs because she wasn't told what state agency she would be working for. Turns out, that job was checking signatures on recall petitions for the Government Accountability Board, which plans to hire 50 temp workers to deal with recall efforts against Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov....

MADISON — Members of the Government Accountability Board seemed impressed. Armed with language from a Wisconsin statute and GAB regulations, Mary Ann Hanson earlier this week spoke out against the policy of allowing voters who have submitted an absentee ballot to vote at a polling place on election day. It's a long-held practice, according to the GAB, predating the board itself, which was created in 2007 to replace the State Elections Board and the State Ethics Board. If the absentee ballot hasn’t been “cast” — processed and tabulated — the person who filed the absentee ballot can vote in person,...

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Board’s Action Done without Legislative Direction [Madison, Wisc…] A political opponent of Scott Walker succeeded Monday in convincing the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board to make it easier to hold recall elections in the state. The Board voted 5-1 in favor of a request of Patrick Williams of WisconsinRecall.net to allow single-signature petitions forms to be submitted and accumulated as a part of an effort to force recall elections. The single-signature form is the first step in facilitating the collection of recall signatures online, rather than in person. However, while the GAB has approved the one-signature petition collection, the Board did...

<p>MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin elections officials are quashing a movement by citizen activists that encouraged voters to voluntarily show photo identifications at polling places.The Government Accountability Board voted on Monday to outlaw the practice, which its staff said could confuse, intimidate and offend voters who object to the requirement.The "We're Watching Wisconsin Elections" campaign urged citizens to tell their municipal clerks to list them in the statewide voter database as needing to show a photo ID to vote. Supporters argued the requirement would protect their vote by making sure others did not cast ballots under their identities.But board members said there was no law that authorized voluntary voter ID, and they couldn't order it.</p>