Madison – State election officials put off making recall petitions available publicly on Monday after hearing privacy concerns from people who signed them.
The state Government Accountability Board provided copies of the petitions against Gov. Scott Walker to Walker’s campaign on Friday and had said that it planned to post copies of them on its website Monday.
But agency spokesman Reid Magney said the board was holding off on posting them online after hearing concerns about a stalking victim who signed the petitions and others who did not want their names released.
Wisconsin democrats want Walker removed anonymously.
Recall organizers say more than 1 million people signed petitions to recall Walker, nearly double the 540,208 valid signatures needed. The board has until March 19 to determine whether enough signatures were filed to force a recall election.
How is anyone to determine validity of signatures if names are not released?
Making both types of petitions available has allowed the general public to verify that enough proper signatures were gathered.
On Monday, the board heard from people who did not want their information disclosed for privacy reasons, which led the board to take more time to consider the issue, Magney said.
They should have thought of that before they signed.
Last month the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin wrote the accountability board to say if it makes a database of the names of petition signers publicly available, it should mask the names of victims of domestic abuse who ask to keep their names confidential.
The theme here is “Compromise thee, not me.”
“You can’t sign a petition to recall an elected public official in secret,” Lueders said.
Apparently Wisconsin democrats think they can.
H/T BG
And here is why democrats want to keep it all secret and why they so oppose voted ID:
On Wednesday, local watchdog Citizens for Responsible Government in Racine reported that Racine native Jeff Demet’s name was found four times on the petition to recall Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard. Finding the same signature four times is bad enough, but when Demet was contacted about the four signatures, he claims he never signed the Wanggaard recall petition at all!
This week, Ken Brown of CRG Racine was perusing the recall petitions for names he might recognize and came across his friend Jeff Demet. Brown thought this was interesting because not only does Demet not support the recall of Senator Wanggaard, but Demet even signed up withVerify The Recall to ensure his name was not on the recall petition.
Nevertheless, there he was was supposedly signing the recall petition four times.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
They’ve been made available to the Walker campaign already, correct? Presumably no one has more interest in diligently checking for irregularities than they do.
I can understand why a stalking victim might not want their name and address to be made public. State officials should simply provide a specific time frame for people to request that their names be redacted, and then release everything else.
There’s really no serious question about there being enough names on the petition to bring about a recall.
You want Walker recalled and replaced with a Democrat, don’t you Greg? Yes or no.
Wisconsin Law says the petitions are public records. The 2011 Senate recall petitions were already released to the public. Why is is this different?
Non-governmental groups are already analyzing the petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker and are likely to ask election officials to remove names they find questionable.
Those election officials do not have to remove any of the questionable names, however.
The trouble will come IF there are names left in the count that are completely fraudulent, names like Minnie Mouse, John Doe and numerous signatures with handwriting that is identical.
We’ve seen it before, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
One person who had a chance to look at 94 pages of 5-to-7 signatures each said he found dozens of cases of obvious fraud in just those few of the total.
Another person has come forward with an admission:
He signed the recall petition about 80 times.
http://www.wisn.com/politics/29958007/detail.html
The GAB director said, according to state law, it’s up to the officeholder to catch duplicates. So, in this case, it will be up to Walker’s campaign and Republicans to catch any duplicate recall signatures turned in.
If people’s names are being signed without their knowledge, there’s no way to ‘protect’ a stalking victim, her name may be on there a dozen times, complete with address, with the perpetrator of that forgery and fraud totally unaware of the damage he/she has done.
There’s no other way to ensure the sanctity of the electoral process, the names/signatures/forms must be made public – in the cloud.
And, really – anyone caught committing fraud need to have the book thrown at them. Huge fines. Jail time. Permanent revocation of their voting rights. Losing their ability to run for or hold public office. Community service with a scarlet letter… it has to be serious in order to put an end to this madness.
@Wm T Sherman, #2:
Imagine you have a daughter who signed the petition, who has had ongoing problems with some psycho ex-boyfriend.
If the records aren’t made public after people have had time to request removal of their names for such reasons, I will then be in complete agreement with you.
Yes, I would like to see Walker removed. I strongly disapprove of his anti-union, anti-public worker agenda. What I think doesn’t matter, however. That’s entirely up to the people of the state of Wisconsin to decide, in accordance with the laws of their state.
And another stunning display of hypocrisy. The same liberal/progressives who want to keep the names of these people out the public limelight, essentially being anonymous to the public are the same people that support pushing “CardCheck” through. Card check, if you recall, supports the removal of private voting on whether or not a workplace becomes unionized.
I want to see a liberal bend and contort to justify the differences. Go ahead. I’ll be waiting.
WI state law says that recall petitions are public, Greg. The concern for potential stalking victims is a red herring. I would go so far as to say that concern for the fate of individuals versus success of The Cause is definitely not a defining characteristic of the Left, so this reeks of cynicism.
I would say any daughter of mine would be smart enough not to sign a public petition if she wished to remain hidden, just like any other public activity that reveals identity — such as campaign donations. Certain campaign donors to activist organizations for California Prop 8 (constitutional amendment to define marriage as between man and woman only) learned this lesson the hard way. Boycotts, picketing, and harassment by gays followed after for targets considered vulnerable such as restaurant owners, entertainment industry figures, and churches. Are you against revealing the identity of campaign donors, Greg? It doesn’t matter if you are — it’s the law. Under the law, that was the risk they took by donating.
the good GOVERNER AGAINST THE CORRUPTED UNIONS,
LEAVE HIM ALONE YOU ALL, don’t you see a just man among the crowd of corrupt ignorants
@Greg:
Then don’t sign it. Or verify the name and signature and redact the address.
In Wisconsin we apparently no longer have 2 and 4 year election cycles, we now have 1 year recall cycles. I have already seen one conservative website throw out the idea of starting a recall 12 months later if Walker is to lose regardless of who the Democrat winner might be.
And to make it more interesting, conservatives are being encouraged to vote for Kathleen Falk in the Democrat primary becuase there is no way that dingbat will beat Walker.
Here in Wisconsin your vote can be invalidated for no other reason than the opposing party didn’t win or doesn’t like the way things are going. No more waiting until the next election cycle in Wisconsin, start your own recall cycle, and this one is conservatively estimated to cost the taxpayers 9 million dollars.
I did find it amusing when all of the progressives who were so proud and eager to sign the petitions were suddenly “oh sh*t” you’re not going to actually show my name are you?
The thing I love best about the recall idiocy is “out of staters” like Greggy who think they know everything that there is to know about Wisconsin public sector unions. If he actually studied half the abuses and outrageous workplace rules that my tax dollars fund he probably would be a little fed up as well.
Instead he prefers to stick to Democratic talking points, which in this state, you can cite before the liberals even open their mouths and spew them out because they really never change.
@Bobachek: What eats Greg the most is that Walker’s efforts are succeeding.
@Greg: So why is she signing?
Raiding the graveyards for names. Where is this suburb called Forest Lawn?
oil guy from Alberta
HI,
yes they must have spent a lot of time in the graveyard on halloween day
bye
Jury tampering and dabbling with election roles and procedures is offensive, in the State of Wisconsin the offense could bring felony charges. The state with Briggs & Stratton, Dremil and a myriad of other small nimble machine parts manufacturing needs a citizen governor regardless of union-thugster sympathies. The truth be known the entire unionista numbers in Wisconsin would not – not – not fill Packer Stadium and perhaps would register numbers equal to about half the town of Sheboygan.
Argue with a simpleton and you end sounding like a simpleton. Progs are beyond understanding.
Hey, I didn’t sign a petition to boot Walker. A million Wisconsin state residents did. Complain to them.
If he’s so popular, he shouldn’t have any problem with a recall election.
@Greg: Greg, you always seem to miss the point of the post.
GREG
a million you said, many have 4 times their names, no wonder they don’t want to be made public,
but they should be, that would tell how far they have gone and how low.
Hey … Is that Star Chamber you refer to like the Ken Starr Chambe(R) that hounded Clinton for years, and eventually got a stained dress … ?
Snerd
@Greg: You said:
That makes no sense.
The stalker, by definition would probably already know the name and address of their intended victim. And if they didn’t, how likely are they to sift through a million names to find their victim’s address??
@Bobachek: In regards to your paragraph about Greggy — I would suspect that if he knew the ‘stuff’ you refer to about the WI public sector unions – he would be there in no time with his hand out for a gubmit job — AND get it — of course he may already be on the public slop trough in some other state.
@Greg:
Everyone has the right to the voting process. The incumbents have rights, the opposition has rights, and the voters have rights. No single side is entitled to more rights than the other. In your hypothetical, “my daughter” would have the right to sign the petition, knowing it is public domain. Her rights would end there.
@Randy:
He’s not missing the point. He’s deliberately trying to derail the thread. He knows he can’t defend his marxist buddies, so he tries to deflect the heat.
Remember, just because he’s not spraying spit all over does not mean greg isn’t a loony marxist whose goal is to push his leftist ideology on America.
@Hard Right, #24:
Consider this statement from post #5, which you somehow seem to have missed:
If the records aren’t made public after people have had time to request removal of their names for such reasons, I will then be in complete agreement with you.
@Hard Right: You said:
Boy you got this one right, HR.