It’s not so much the vote that I’m concerned about, it’s the recall petition.
I have made a decision. I will not sign the petition, but if enough signatures are gathered to force an election, I will go out and vote (against Walker) as a matter of civic duty. I presume against because the Dems have not even put up a candidate yet, though I’d be hard pressed to imagine a worse one than Walker.
I just had a rather disturbing encounter at my front door. A woman who had come by last week soliciting recall signatures showed up again. This time she had a printed list that she said was the list of registered voters in the local voting district, and asked my to verify that my information was current. I asked what why she was doing this, and she said some other woman who was some king of election official was also coordinating the local recall signing drive, and she had asked her volunteers to take this data around and make sure it was still current.
I’m really pretty upset about this. I really don’t like the idea that someone with an official public position has decided to hand out presumably confidential election information to volunteers, and use it as some kind of tool in the recall effort.
Anyway, I wouldn’t cooperate or verify anything. Even if I had cooperated, I’m upset with the very idea that this official might take information from this volunteer and change my election data in some way, if I had found some piece of wrong information that needed correction.
Maybe I’m wrong about the “using election data as a recall tool” part. Maybe the woman just decided that since she had people knocking on every door in the district, it would be really convenient to update all her election data. And she’s not cross-checking the list against petition signers. Or maybe she is. Either way, it’a a mix that makes me really uncomfortable.
I’m thinking now about who to call and report this to tomorrow. I guess the county clerk’s office is the place to find out whether anybody is violating any rules or laws here.
double post
Dunno about Wisconsin, but voting registration data is open to the public in a lot of states.
ETA: looks public to me
(also, looks like the records could use some checking, since Scott Walker apparently registered to vote in 1918)
According to United WI they’ve collected 507,533 signatures and are aiming for over 720,000.
In Madison (which is not representative of the whole state) there are so many people who want him out that they are going door to door for petition signatures.
There’s also been some bitching about it in the press by the state Republican party. On Black Friday the recall organization but up tables outside of many big retailers in order to catch the hordes of shoppers. The Pubs suggested that local business owners ask them to leave because they were obstructing business traffic, and suggested calling the police on them if they didn’t leave promptly. I’m not aware of any police incidents, however.
There have been a few incidents in Milwaukee suburbs (Brookfield, specifically) where the cops have been called, but I don’t think anything major has amounted to the calls. I suspect it’s Walker supporters driving by that think the recall people are on private property when they’re to be only on sidewalks and other public places (or private places with permission). I’ve signed the petition, and it was when I saw a sign held by someone in the Waukesha suburbs near a Target, Home Depot, Menards, and other businesses. People pulled over their car to the side of the road (a not very busy sidestreet), and the recaller came over to the car window with the petition.
I know people working on the recall’s ground campaign, and they’re hitting the suburban and rural conservative areas especially hard with petitions-- and doing extremely well. They don’t want to be accused of cherry-picking the liberal bastions, and they want to make absolutely sure they’ll have plenty of “Yes” voters from even the toughest parts of the state (the ones that originally voted for him) come election day.
AFAIK the state won’t be publishing a breakdown of where the signatures come from. There will either be enough signatures, or not.
Regardless of reality, the Pubs will claim that the recall people saturated Madison and Milwaukee, and that these liberal bastions are the cause of the “problem”. So the reality doesn’t matter a whole lot, as long as there are enough total legitimate signatures.
Assembly Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, not to be confused with his brother Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, isn’t happy with the Government Accountability Board. He seems to think it makes the recall effort too easy.
Nevermind that he liked the new (current) system when it was brought in several years ago (by a nearly unanimous decision), replacing the ethics and elections board in '07. These guys, if nothing else, are just completely tone deaf. It’s like Walker and his idea to bill protesters in advance for groups of 4 or more people (see the Pit thread for that). Whether you like the idea or not, why bring on more negative attention?
Have you read the other Recall Walker thread in this forum?
Scott Walker Recall Takes an Unexpected Turn
It lists three counties that favored Walker in the election and which are now seeing strong turnout for the the recall signature campaign. I was up in Portage Co. recently and saw more Recall yard signs there than I’ve seen here in Madison.