Verify the Recall – Has Been Verified

[hue]

http://bloggingblue.com/2012/03/03/verify-the-recall-has-been-verified/

The results are in – they should be advocating for stronger public schools!

I recently asked "who is going to verify the "Verify the Recall" group? Luckily for us, our friends at PR watch did just that:

Findings released this week from the Tea Party-led “Verify the Recall” effort allege that recall proponents fell short of the 540,000 signatures necessary to recall Governor Scott Walker. However, a cursory review of the pages they allege are erroneous actually include the information they claim is missing. Signatures the groups deem “ineligible” are very clearly legitimate. Some of the problems appear to arise from data entry errors on the part of True the Vote volunteers.

VTR said that they supposedly had approximately 4700 “volunteers” from across the country(who all shall remain anonymous) who entered 820,000 names and 138,203 petitions. The problem though was 1,000,000 names and 152,508 petitions were submitted. Oops. That means they flat out did not “verify” almost 60,000 signatures. According to their logic, if they did not enter the names they have to be ineligible. VTR also “flagged” another 228,940 for”further investigation”. Again, VTR logic states if they flag it, it must be ineligible.

Brendan @ PR Watch went through these and found a pattern. The “ineligible” signatures were embarrassingly to VTR eligibile. Let’s look at some examples:

[midnight]

1. I wonder if these 4,700 VTR folks can be put on line with names and addresses?

[Lifelong Protester]

2. I'm with you there

Ya know, goose/gander, etc.

[Scuba]

3. The Walker campaign successfully challenged exactly zero signatures.

[PeaceNikki]

7. It's not over, they will litigate it.

Watch.

[Scuba]

8. No doubt.

[PeaceNikki]

9. A friend who circulated and signed is nowhere on their master spreadsheet.

Curious...

[wandy]

4. Did we really expect them to be honest? n/t

[SWTORFanatic]

5. Their goal is not to be honest... it's to get disinformation out quickly so every paid koch troll

repeats it.

[PeaceNikki]

6. Very quick glance at data entry errors they made on my family:

They spelled my son's name wrong and it's A) a common name and B) pretty clear
They entered zip code wrong for my son, which could/would flag it - and it is right on petition - I am looking at scanned copy
The spelled put "Menomonee Galls" as municipality for my dad.... that's not what is written

Oh, and they listed my son and 2 of my best friends on the "Questionable" list. WTF does that mean?!?!

[dembotoz]

10. Menomonee Galls????????????? no that seems correct

that little pocket of waukesha county galls me all the time

[Olderandwizer]

11. How to verify my signature?

I just "stumbled" across a site - "Put Wisconsin First" that has links to the recall petitions. I've been wondering if my name was still being counted - I made SURE that my printing was clear, my signature neat, and all required info was listed when I signed. This site has a link that searches by zip code. http://www.putwisconsinfirst.com/byzip.php I found my name on the Walker recall, but not on the Fitzgerald petition, which I had also signed. I don't know how accurate this site is - I believe it's one of those "third-party" verification sites. I WOULD like to know if my signature is actually counted for the Fitz recall. Does anyone know where I can check this out, and also if there is somewhere I can protest if my signature has not been counted?

I just found this DU site, and I think I'm going to like it here!

[mopinko]

12. welcome aboard.

[dragonlady]

13. Their data entry is quite poor

I found our names, but some people who I know signed are not there. If you have a lot of time on your hands you could look through the petitions on the GAB site:

http://webapps.wi.gov/sites/recall/default.aspx

But I wouldn't worry about it. If your information was clear, that's better than most on the petitions!

And welcome to DU!