GAB vote Friday to certify recall elections

MADISON -- The Government Accountability Board will order recall elections at its meeting on Friday. This, after it released reports on Thursday indicating there were enough recall petition signatures to force recalls against Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

Thursday's memo says there were 931,053 signatures submitted to the GAB. 26,114 signatures were struck by GAB staff. Another 4,001 were duplicates that were struck. In the end, there were 900,938 valid signatures on the Gov. Walker petition. Only 540,208 were needed to secure the recall election.

In the effort to recall Lt. Gov. Kleefisch, 842,854 signatures were submitted to the GAB. 29,601 were struck by GAB staff. Another 4,263 were duplicates struck. In the end, there were 808,990 valid signatures in the recall effort against Kleefisch.

The primary for the recall election would be May 8 and the general election would be June 5.

The board has already said enough signatures were collected on petitions seeking the recalls of four Republican state senators. It plans to vote Friday on certifying those elections for the same dates as those against Walker and Kleefisch.

Walker responded Thursday to the numbers released by the GAB. "We thought there'd be over a million. It's not quite that amount, and it doesn't matter what that number is, if there's enough for an election," Walker said.

Potential Democratic contender Kathleen Falk was in campaign-mode Thursday. The question mark for Falk is whether Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will run. Barrett has said he'd like to take another shot at running against Walker, but has yet to declare whether he's in or out.

Governor Walker says despite the opponent, his message will be the same. "I just look forward to the opportunity to spell out the contrast. I mean, we can go back to the days of double-digit tax increases, billion-dollar budget deficit and record job loss," Walker said.