Milwaukee Public Schools recall fails against at least 3 board members
Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS)
MILWAUKEE - A group formed to recall half of the sitting Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors has failed to collect enough signatures to trigger at least three of the four recalls.
Documents posted online by the City of Milwaukee Election Commission on Thursday. Aug. 15 show organizers did not reach the threshold needed for Board President Marva Herndon, Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi and Board Member Erika Siemsen. The commission is still reviewing signatures for Mizzy Zombor, who holds the board's only at-large seat.
State law required petitioners to collect at least 25% of the votes cast within that district in the last gubernatorial election, which happened in 2022.
For Herndon's seat, petitioners needed 5,139 valid signatures. The commission said they received 1,489.
The commission found 280 signatures for Gokalgandhi's seat, which needed 7,759 signatures to advance.
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In District 2, the commission reported just 75 signatures to recall Siemsen, short of the 6,809 needed there.
The threshold is much higher for Zombor's seat – 44,177 – as she holds the at-large seat.
The commission's findings are a blow to the MPS Recall Collaborative – a group that formed in June following the discovery of financial reporting errors within the district. Organizers accused the board of being deceitful in asking voters to pass a $252 million referendum while not saying anything publicly about the district's finance office issues.
Last month, the collaborative announced it had collected 37,000 signatures, though organizers didn't say whether they knew how many signatures they had collected in each district. The collaborative also mentioned an anonymous donor was backing their effort.
The collaborative has until Aug. 22 to challenge the signatures.
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The election commission said the verification process has taken longer, because the collaborative did not initially group the petitions by district.