Gov. Walker Not Challenging Recall Signatures

The Friends of Scott Walker campaign will not challenge the signatures turned in to recall Gov. Scott Walker. 

The campaign is filing paperwork with the Government Accountability Board on Monday, but is apparently not challenging the signatures, according to a report by WISN TV.

"We have essentially been given an impossible deadline," campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews told WISN 12. 

The campaign needed to review more than 152,000 pages of recall petitions, and while it was given a 20-day exension, a judge denied the request for two more weeks. The campaign filed legal documents Monday with the Government Acountability Board

In a release, the Friends of Scott Walker campaign said "multiple stories have surfaced which point to incidences of fraud and abuse in the recall process," noting examples from the Republican Party of Wisconsin of addresses that are vacant lots and names such as "Donald Duck" on the petitions. 

With the campaign bowing out, that "leaves only a review by state elections officials standing between the Republican governor" and recall, reports the Journal Sentinel. 

The campaign's filing with the GAB states it found problems with 10 to 20 percent of 350,000 reviewed signatures, the JS reports, which is "consistent with the Journal Sentinel's own review of the petitions."

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin took a large degree of satisfaction from the announcement.

"After months of bellyaching, obfuscation and hysterical claims by his Tea Party allies, Scott Walker is now acknowledging his total failure in producing credible evidence that would stop his recall," said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate in a release.