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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Could Walker Recall Be in Doubt?

A funny thing could happen on the way to getting a recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, it might not be a "sure thing" like we've been told.

Since the Union Activists grass roots organizers marched to the Government Accountability Board (GAB) with their "1,000,000" signatures the media and the left (I know, redundant) have claimed that the election in inevitable. Except no one seemed to count the signatures, hell the GAB claims it's not their job.

Well, a few grass roots groups on the other side have been counting, and their math, along with some basic work from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes me wonder if we'll even see a recall election in Wisconsin.

A number of people, from different groups doing independent verifications of the petitions have come up with an average number of signatures per page of 4.9; sounds like a lot with over 152,000 pages submitted; but doing the math shows that instead of a million signatures, that only comes out to 750,000.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did a randomly generated check on 500 signatures, and found with what was no more than a cursory look that about 15% of them were obvious fakes. The didn't look for duplicates or verify address or names, or go through the Verify The Recall database for folks who didn't want to be on it. Just using their number, and the verifiers rate of signatures, you are already down to 635,000 signatures.

If 750,000 is closer to the true number submitted, that means that Walker would have to eliminate 28% of the submitted signatures to have the recall effort fall short of the 541,000 they need to get it through.

How do 28% get eliminated? What's leaking out so far from the groups verifying the signatures are tales of large numbers of errors that fall out of the "clerical error" category that can be corrected. For instance, dates on signatures that fell after the document was signed as complete. Dates on the top signature lines that were done after the bottom line. Every document by Lena Taylor being wrong, with the wrong address and district listed on them.

So if the Journal comes up with 15% failing common sense checks, and reviewers find 10% of the pages are flawed due to items as above, you now only need 3% to end up with less than the necessary number. Considering news stories of people signing 80 times, or people who've signed up on Verify the Recall who shouldn't be on the list being there, 3% won't be hard to come up with.

The thought of exploding unionista heads if the GAB is forced to say that there aren't enough valid signatures makes for some sweet dreams.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Recall Elections A Possibility?

The State Assembly in Illinois today passed (75-33) a Constitutional Amendment that would allow for the recall of elected officials in Illinois. It's a shame that such a rule doesn't already exist here, but hopefully our representatives in Springfield can take care of that problem.

When you think of it, having the Assembly, State Senate, and Governors Mansion (or a Chicago Condo) occupied by Democrats one would think the Governor would be safe from having stuff like this pop up. It's no secret that the proposed amendment is aimed squarely at Gov. Blagojevich, and his own party, at least in the Assembly, seems to be pretty happy to give the means to get rid of him.

However, Emil Jones, the leader of the State Senate still has to bring this up for a vote there. Considering his ties to the Governor, and the fact that he seems to work to the beat of his own drummer, it's no slam dunk this will see the light of day in the Senate. Jones carries a pretty big stick, and regardless of the "will of the people" would probably twist a lot of arms to get it to fail and save his friend. Passing it would require all GOP Senators to vote yes, plus 14 of the 37 Democrats.

Should Jones bring it to the floor, and it passes with the 60% vote required, it would still require citizen approval in November, making April 09 the earliest it could be used. It would then require nearly 420,000 petition signatures to get the recall on the ballot.

For those (like me) who'd like to see a recall election of Blagojevich, keep in mind that it wouldn't necessarily mean a GOP candidate would get the office. Anyone can declare as a candidate for the position, and who ever gets the most votes would take over should the recall itself succeed. Considering the state of the GOP in Illinois, Pat Quinn, Mike Madigan or Emil Jones are all just as likely to win the office as anyone the GOP could bring to the table.

If you would like to call Mr. Jones and ask him to bring this bill to the Senate floor, his number in Springfield is (217) 782-2728, his local office in Chicago is (773) 995-7748, or you can fax him at (773) 995-9061.

To find the contact info for your State Senator check this page http://www.ilga.gov/senate/

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