Reaction to petition submission mixed in southeast Wisconsin



MILWAUKEE -- Tuesday, recall petitions targeting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and four Wisconsin State Senators were delivered to the Government Accountability Board in Madison. For recall supporters, turning in these signatures was a reason to celebrate after weeks of hard work!

On a frigid January afternoon about 80 people turned out at Milwaukee Area Technical College to celebrate the more than one million signatures filed to recall Governor Scott Walker. "I was so excited, I had to come down, even though it's bitterly cold out here with this wind. I was hoping we'd get 800,000, and we got almost double what was necessary. It's very significant," Larry Miller said.

Another celebration attendee Tuesday said if all those signatures end up being verified, the effort is impressive! "I really didn't believe it when I heard it. I heard the rumors and I thought it was just pandering, but if that's really a verifiable number, I'm really quite happy with that. Very impressed," Rich Nordbrock said.

The Waukesha County Republican Party is recruiting volunteers to comb the petitions for possible fraud. The party says it's already trained over 600 people. "We've had just a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for people to come in and volunteer to verify the signatures," Keith Best, with the Waukesha County Republican Party said.

Volunteers will review the petitions by hand, looking for possible challenges. Those signatures will then be sent to Madison, where a committee will review them a second time. Volunteers are being trained in Waukesha every night this week. "I believe there's a strong silent majority that's gonna stand up for this election and stand up for Governor Walker because his reforms are working," Best said.

For those on both sides of this recall effort, there's still a lot of work ahead. "I knew they would come in with a large number (of signatures), and now, our job is to educate people from now until this election that we knew was going to happen all along," Best said.

As it stands, Walker supporters have just 10 days to review the recall petitions and make their challenges. A Government Accountability Board spokesman told FOX6 Tuesday he expects the Walker campaign will seek an extension.