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9th Dec 2011 at 19:00 | By Collin Roth

Man Claims To Sign Recall 80 Times, One Wisconsin Now Says It’s His Right

By Collin Roth

On Thursday night, WISN Channel 12 in Milwaukee ran a stunning interview with a man claiming to have signed the petition to recall Governor Walker 80 times. In an interview with Channel 12′s Kent Wainscott, a gentlemen explains how many times he has signed the Recall Walker petition and his reasoning behind it:

Did you sign the petition?

Yeah, I think I signed it about 80 times.

You signed several-80 petitions you think?

Yeah, I signed a lot of them. You know for the past two weeks so I’ve been seeing them at the Grand Avenue Mall and here by Pick-N-Save and stuff. I’ve been seeing them around and just been signing them. So, yeah.

You keep signing them. You know they are only going to count one of your signatures?

Oh well, hey, as long as what it takes to get Scott Walker out of here I’m happy.

That means signing repeatedly?

Yeah. They cheated for Bush, so, hey, I’m going to cheat to get Scott Walker outta here.

This man’s statements and claims were so unjustifiable that even Democratic spokesman Graeme Zielinski said:

Well, these are not credible people. They either have mental illnesses or they are up to no good. They are up to criminal activity. And if they are up to criminal activity, they should be prosecuted.

What is interesting to note is that the liberal group One Wisconsin Now recently published a memo titled “Recall Petitioners’ Rights,” informing signers that it is within their rights to sign a recall petition more than once. Taken from their memo:

You can circulate or sign a recall petition even if you have already signed another recall petition (note, however, that only one signature per person will be counted)

One Wisconsin Now is sending a message that it is not only legal but a right to sign the recall petition more than once. But coming on the heels that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board will not be reviewing every one of the over 540,000 signatures but only those challenged by the Walker campaign, One Wisconsin Now’s “right” becomes a serious problem.

Earlier this week, the Appleton Post Crescent‘s editorial board criticized One Wisconsin Now. It was a nice effort to try to reason with the unreasonable, letting One Wisconsin Now know that telling people it is their right to sign the recall petition more than once is not even within their own interest. From the Post Crescent:

So, given the atmosphere of dislike, distrust and disgust, why on earth would a liberal advocacy group, One Wisconsin Now, say it’s OK for people to sign more than one Walker recall petition?

In a “recall petitioners’ rights” memo, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, One Wisconsin Now lists this item: “You can circulate or sign a recall petition even if you have already signed another recall petition (note, however, that only one signature per person will be counted.)”

This is true. It’s not against the recall law, which only says about the issue, “If a challenger can establish that a person signed the recall petition more than once, the 2nd and subsequent signatures may not be counted.”

So it would be up to the Walker people, not the state’s Government Accountability Board, to find duplicates and challenge them.

And, as a GAB spokesman told the Journal Sentinel, there may be a legitimate reason to sign a second petition: If the signer believes the first one is fraudulent. Of course, that’s another indication of how poisoned the state environment is.

Nevertheless, One Wisconsin Now saying it’s OK to sign more than one petition plays right into the hands of its opponents, who think the petitioning is shady anyway. In that regard, it goes against OWN’s own interests.

And in this atmosphere, perception goes a long way.

So how does One Wisconsin Now respond? In typical fashion they attempt to clothe their encouragement of fraud in the language of “rights” and “public service.” In a response to the Appleton Post Crescent, Executive Director Scot Ross wrote:

One Wisconsin Now never encouraged, advocated nor suggested those participating in the recall petition signing process to sign more than one petition. To state differently is false.

No, One Wisconsin Now did not “encourage, advocate, or suggest” those participating in the recall should sign the petition more than once. They claimed it was a right!

Our memo is comprehensive and detailed. Our memo is meticulously researched. Our memo provides people with the facts.

And we respectfully disagree with The P-C that informing the public of their rights is anything less than a valuable public service.

A public service? I’m sure Wisconsinites are clamoring to thank One Wisconsin Now for their “public service” that justifies a man signing the recall petition 80 times.

Discussion | 9 Comments

cmm912 said

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Dec 9, 2011 at 7:17 PM

WTF?!?!?!? And the Professional-Left says our elections aren’t tampered with! Yeah, right!! Guess who’s pegged to count the ballots boxes in Florida’s Presidential race? None other than obama’s puppet-masters, SEIU!!! And we’re supposed to believe that that will be a fair count?!??????
Chuck said

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Dec 15, 2011 at 9:48 PM

Brian, you are so incredibly naive that it blows one’s mind. Of course, it fits your readership perfectly.
colbey said

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Dec 16, 2011 at 1:05 AM

So fr, this is ONE instance, so I think the Democratic guy could be right in that this individual has some other…problems.
Also, the One Wis. group’s saying a voter “can” is much different than the author of this article claiming they said voters “should.” To “encourage, advocate, or suggest” requires something a lot stronger than “you can.”
And their including that with the “you can sign and then circulate petitions” makes me think that’s really what they were trying to get across–that a voter has a right (yes, an important right, for conservatives too) to both sign a petition and then circulate one too.

The bill just introduced to make signing a recall petition a FELONY concerns me. I think of my grandmother, who is sincere in all she does, but is a bit forgetful at times. She’d probably be signing a conservative-leaning petition (like the recall petitions that will be circulating here soon for our rep), but if she forgets that she signed it once and signs it again later (and it IS a 60-day process!), should she be prosecuted as a FELON??
If it’s not already a misdemeanor, maybe it should be. Although I’m guessing that the number of times someone actually attempts fraud via signing a petition more than once is going to be so low that it might not be worth the time and expense.

Anyway, a truly cynical person might think a voter who pretty much brags about signing a petition multiple times, just might be someone who wants to see the petition fail. If it were flipped, and it was a recall petition for a Democratic legislator, and a person loudly proclaimed to the media that they’d signed it 80 times, I think most of us would wonder if he (or she) were a P-L trying to throw the whole process into question.
colbey said

Reply

Dec 16, 2011 at 1:05 AM

So far, this is ONE instance, so I think the Democratic guy could be right in that this individual has some other…problems.
Also, the One Wis. group’s saying a voter “can” is much different than the author of this article claiming they said voters “should.” To “encourage, advocate, or suggest” requires something a lot stronger than “you can.”
And their including that with the “you can sign and then circulate petitions” makes me think that’s really what they were trying to get across–that a voter has a right (yes, an important right, for conservatives too) to both sign a petition and then circulate one too.

The bill just introduced to make signing a recall petition a FELONY concerns me. I think of my grandmother, who is sincere in all she does, but is a bit forgetful at times. She’d probably be signing a conservative-leaning petition (like the recall petitions that will be circulating here soon for our rep), but if she forgets that she signed it once and signs it again later (and it IS a 60-day process!), should she be prosecuted as a FELON??
If it’s not already a misdemeanor, maybe it should be. Although I’m guessing that the number of times someone actually attempts fraud via signing a petition more than once is going to be so low that it might not be worth the time and expense.

Anyway, a truly cynical person might think a voter who pretty much brags about signing a petition multiple times, just might be someone who wants to see the petition fail. If it were flipped, and it was a recall petition for a Democratic legislator, and a person loudly proclaimed to the media that they’d signed it 80 times, I think most of us would wonder if he (or she) were a P-L trying to throw the whole process into question.
colbey said

Reply

Dec 16, 2011 at 1:06 AM

Sorry it went through twice. Not my intent.
I’d delete it if I could.
trlo said

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Jan 5, 2012 at 12:36 AM

except it is one’s right to sign more than once (even though only one counts) and refusing to allow someone to sign is illegal… aside from this, your story is well-reasoned.