mohandasgandhi:

Conservatives Plot to Burn, Shred, and Sabotage Scott Walker Recall Effort

A group of self-identified conservatives say they plan to sabotage the effort to recall Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker, which begins on Tuesday, by burning and shredding recall petitions they’ve collected and misleading Wisconsinites about the recall process.

These plans, discussed in Facebook posts that were first reported by the blog PolitiScoop, entail posing as recall supporters and gathering signatures, only to later destroy the petitions. They also include telling Wisconsinites that they can only sign one recall petition (which is false—they can sign different petitions as long as they each correspond to a different organization) and directing signature collectors to the homes of registered sex offenders. (Requests for comment were sent to each of the Facebook posters who allowed messages from other users.)

In one post, Will R. Jenkins says, “I’ll be able to destroy 15-20K signatures.” If things go well, he adds, he might even “be able to destroy upwards of 15-20% of the entire collected ballots in the state of Wisconsin”:

Click here to view the Facebook posts and even more here.

Michael Maistelman, a Wisconsin attorney and election law expert who reviewed screenshots of the comments, says the postings could raise serious legal issues if the plan is to tamper with official recall petitions. “If a person fraudulently solicits recall petitions and then destroys those petitions, they will probably go to jail,” Maistelman says. “The law is very clear on this.”

[UDPATE]: Reid Magney, a spokesman from Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, says destroying or defacing an official recall petition would violate state law. (Here’s the relevant statute.) Such a violation, he adds, would be a class I felony in Wisconsin, which carries a maximum fine of $10,000 and up to three-and-a-half years in jail.

Wisconsinites, be on the lookout for this sort of behavior come Tuesday. What’s been described above are premeditated felonies and these individuals were simply dumb enough to get caught. Familiarize yourself with how this recall is going to work and protect yourself against the inevitable GOP dirty tricks. Scott Walker is going down.

(via pantslessprogressive)

mohandasgandhi:

It’s Recall Time for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Can it succeed?

Ninety percent of those from both parties polled said they’d vote in a Walker recall election, with 77 percent of those saying they’d “definitely” vote. The energy is there, Maslin told the staffers. And so, more crucially, was the anger: 51 percent said they’d vote for Walker’sopponent, while just 42 percent said they’d vote for Walker. The governor could be beaten, Maslin suggested.

[…]

That fight begins at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday with the launch of the official Walker recall campaign. Organizers have 60 days to collect at least 540,208 signatures to trigger a recall election for Walker. (Another 540,208 additional signatures are needed to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.) The grassroots groups spearheading the recall effort under the “United Wisconsin” banner say they hope to collect as many as 700,000 or 800,000 signatures by mid-January. That’s roughly 12,000 or 13,000 a day. If they do, it will set up a bruising, cash-flooded, two-month recall campaign next spring, and an actual election between early April and early June, depending on legal challenges and potential primary races on either the Democratic or Republican side.

[…]

Today, Wisconsin is as divided as it was during the fight over Walker’s “repair” bill. In August, the left-leaning Public Policy Polling found that 93 percent of Democrats disliked Walker and 87 percent of Republicans liked him. His overall approval rating remains mediocre, with 47 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving, according to an October PPP survey (PDF).

Too long; didn’t read? Yes but it’s going to be a lot of work.