Kevin Kennedy, director and general counsel of the board... testified that entering signatures into a database to look for duplicates could take eight extra weeks for his staff, and could cost $94,000 for software and outside help.But the judge said they must make "reasonable" efforts. I think making a searchable database is crucial. You've got to at least check for duplicates. And I think people — like me — who didn't sign should be given the ability to ensure that our names were not appropriated.
January 5, 2012
Judge rules in favor of Gov. Walker and requires Government Accountability Board to check for duplicate/fake signatures on recall petitions.
The Journal Sentinel reports:
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I have very little faith in the GAB following this ruling as intended. I think they will purposely misinterpret this ruling.
proc sort data=recall nodupkey;
by voter;
run;
Given how badly the Lefties want to steal this, I think John Smith has a point, but at least they ruled in Walker's favor.
Sooner or later, all Wisconsin Democrats want to play Calvinball.
And I guess the whole John Doe thing was initiated by Walker himself, so now the left will have to find a new conspiracy theory...
Every time a lib says there is no voter fraud, we need to reference this recall effort. Wholesale fraud effort.
Pogo said...
"Sooner or later, all Wisconsin Democrats want to play Calvinball."
Sorry, no one's allowed to question the masks.
Sooner or later, all Wisconsin Democrats want to play Calvinball.
The score is Q to 12.
Wisconsin's goofy recall rules have created a permanent election cycle and seem to make a mock of our democratic republic system of government, since it results in mob rule.
For the amount of money the Democrats and the state are going to spend on this, they could have gotten some good candidates groomed and out there making appearences in prepreation for the 2012 and 2014 elections.
Kind of like Republicans did after getting their asses handed to them in 2006 and 2008.
I don't know the law in Wisconsin, I have no idea what the legal rights and wrongs of it are, but this is the sensible answer, and one hopes that the instances in which the law's answer deviates from the sensible answer are few and far between.
Garage hardest hit.
No doubt also devastated by the news that the John Doe investigation that was supposed to bring down Walker was actually requested by Walker himself.
WV: scuri -- scuri away, GM.
And the Dems justify this colossal waste of money how?
They'll request a recount, too.
Have they found anyone to run against him yet? (I've been trying to ignore Wisconsin politics after last year.)
Why not just wait and vote him out like normal people would?
There I go, answering my own questions again.
So wait a minute Mark, you're telling me that Walker was the one who brought the theft to the authorities? Next thing you'll probably say is that Russell, the guy who Garage thinks is going to bring down Walker, didn't even work for Walker when Walker became Governor.
Garage, really. I think you'd better start basing your hopes elsewhere. I hear Pres. Obama still has a shot at re-election.
No, Obama has no shot at re-election.
How many "Ann Althouse" signatures do you predict?
Now they will have to collect signatures. Getting out of the basement will do them some good.
Does anyone know what kind of information is collected on the recall petitions? Name? Address? Phone number? I mean how do they distinguish one Joe Smith from another (and from a fake Joe Smith)?
In Colorado, petitions are validated by the Secretary of State's office against a statewide voter database mandated by the Federal Help America Vote Act. State law, if I recall correctly, allows the SOS to randomly select 5 percent of the signatures for checking and if the percent of valid signatures for that sample extrapolates to enough valid signatures then the measure goes on the ballot. If the extrapolation is in the 90-110 percent range, then the entire petition has to be checked. If it's less than 90%, then it's toast.
So the GAB, if they wanted to, could use this method to quickly get an idea of where the petition stands. At 5%, they'd have to check about 27K signatures.
Ah, so it HAS occurred to you that someone (probably more than one person) has signed "Ann Althouse," for the recall.
could cost $94,000 for software and outside help
I volunteer to do it for $92,500, in return for which I will also kick back to the state legislature a set of fourteen travel vouchers each good for a week's stay at any Motel 6 in the state of Illinois.
garage is shaking his fist in anger!
It is time to out source the Government Accountability Board.
If Walker is not recalled, make that a-hole Trumka pay for it.
Recalls have consequences, intended and unintended.
I'm quite sure that leftist droids like garage fantasized a quick and easy recall victory. But, the devil is in the details.
The entire process was essentially aborted when actual living (assumed) people asserted that Mickey Mouse and a certain german dictator for example could be considered valid recall petition signatures. Just try signing Elmer J Fudd on a financial commitment doc and watch the lawyers fight over which one should choke you.
garage doesn't have to be upset. His entirely appropriate desire to not burden taxpayers with this cost can still be realized by making the petitioners pay for the check.
Seems only fair since it's their job to make sure the signatures are right in the first place.
Viola, everybody's happy.
I don't get it-
Were previous recalls ran like this one?
Were "valid signatures" treated as a mere nuisance in previous recalls?
If its going to cost that much they should put them up online..
or does that take another eight weeks?
And I think people — like me — who didn't sign should be given the ability to ensure that our names were not appropriated.
Why? You are in Wisconsin, remember, in Madison, for heaven's sake, and progressives don't need facts to ensure outcomes.
Why don't you care about true justice, Professor?
Mark Nielsen said...
Garage hardest hit.
Not really. See, he and his ilk have convinced themselves Walker is corrupt & evil (and of course they are on the benevolent side) and nothing can change that. No facts, nothing.
So when this silly temper tantrum collapses under its own weight (of stupidity) there will soon be stories on think progress about rumors of how one of the GAB members is the 2nd cousin of someone who once worked for Koch Industries.
They'll call the whole process corrupt and move on to how the Republican Presidential nominee is a racist. And that will be that.
I feel sorry for normal people in Wisconsin. This has become comic farce.
Oh, Bugs Bunny isn't a valid signature on a recall petition? The state group that certifies the recall should check for that? Wow, who knew?
"I feel sorry for normal people in Wisconsin. This has become comic farce."
Sure.
But just as bad money chases out good, so too do bad people chase out good ones. Wisconsin's public employee unions wish to cannibalize Wisconsin's fisc; sadly for them, they are much too dim to realize that once they finish the job, the only people left to fleece will be themselves.
Self-actualized Lord of the Flies, indeed.
How many "Ann Althouse" signatures do you predict?
Given the way she keeps saying she didn't sign it, I'm gonna guess at least 4 or 5.
Maybe more...how many of her ProWalker commentators live in Wisconsin? 'cause a couple of 'em were bragging about signing the petition with a fake name.
This is at the bottom of the linked story:
Recall organizers are collecting petitions now to recall Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators. The petitions are due to the accountability board Jan. 17, and the board is charged with validating them and deciding if recalls are warranted.
I've never heard that before. Are they really starting down that path again? Maybe they should make the term of a state senator to be four months and just hold elections three times a year. What the hell is wrong with people in Wisconsin? Are infantile temper tantrums replacing dairy as the primary industry?
I think that it's very likely that the State of Wisconsin owns at least one relational database system(which can eliminate duplicates) - scratch $94K. Then figure the labor cost of entering the data to be at most $112K; 540,000 entries divided by 2 per minute (data entry) divided by 60 minutes per hour multiplied by $25 per hour. And this could be drastically reduced if they could use an optical document scanner.
"I feel sorry for normal people in Wisconsin."
Yeah, but the inside scoop is that both of them are considering moving out of state.
"I think that it's very likely that the State of Wisconsin owns at least one relational database system(which can eliminate duplicates) - scratch $94K."
Sorry, that's like saying "The State of Wisconsin owns some saws and hammers, so that eliminates the cost of building some additional highway rest stops".
It's Walker that is playing Calvinball...2 sets of rules...
There's an organization "Verify the Recall" that can do the job of the GAB with volunteers from all over the country - imagine that?
So much for saving the taxpayers' money, huh? Maybe we should foot the bill for "Reelect Walker" bumperstickers, too.
The upside of a searchable database is that Ann can see if anyone appropriated her name.
The downside is that Walker supporters could use the list to bring social pressure against the signators. The left has done this in the past to signators of gay-marriage-related initiatives in other states.
This is going to turn into a legal mess on both sides.
Especially with the amount of hippie kid names around and the oddballs.
Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop
This is a real, legal name of a WI resident.
http://madisonneareast.channel3000.com/news/crime/64043-man-bizarre-name-faces-weapon-drug-charges
Mr Zopittybop-Bop-Bop and his ilk are going to be interesting to watch play out.
Newspaper story last week (which, of course, I can't find now) said that there are at least two "Donald Ducks" who live in Wisconsin.
If that signature does appears, will the GAB call 'em up and asked if they actually signed? How exactly is that supposed to work?
And did the WI-GOP have these same sort of concerns when they were submitting recall petitions againt Dems? I truly can't remember this being an issue then, but I may have missed it...
Kirk
Spend the $100K to have the info typed into a series of text files and any competent programmer can write what is called a “merge-sort” to identify and remove the duplicate entries. There are off-the-shelf packages that can do that; Opttech's sorting program comes to mind for $149.
A single pass of the sort program and the duplicate are removed, saved to a file, and the names are still in essentially an unusable format.
Jeff
http://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-LOWERS-STATE-OF-ILLINOIS-GO-RATING-TO-A2-FROM--PR_234787
Our credit rating is A-OK thanks to the reforms - but our friends in Illinois are still stuck with there "severe pension funding shortfalls"
"purplepenquin said...
And did the WI-GOP have these same sort of concerns when they were submitting recall petitions againt Dems? I truly can't remember this being an issue then, but I may have missed it..."
You've made this point before, have you forgotten the answer?
Validity of signatures is not a difficult issue when you are talking a senate district...lots less signatures to deal with. Here we are talking 700,000 with the same amount of time for the recalling party to protest.
PP,
I can't speak for the Wisconsin GOP but I think most of us assumed the GAB was fulfilling their duty to ensure the integrity of the process. It wasn't until the Walker recall that the GAB came out with mixed messages on signing multiple times along with the statement that they would accept virtually any name whether valid or not. Add in the fact that you have a statewide recall with 100's of thousands of signatures and its easy to see why many see opportunities for mischief.
Forget it Jake, it's Madison.
That Bezoow dude is Johnny Depp: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/beezow-doo-doo-zopittybop_n_1190410.html
Probably just getting in character for an upcoming role: Pirates of the Carob Beings
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