Vos recall petition being investigated
27 allegations of forged signatures on paperwork
MADISON – The Racine County district attorney is investigating nearly 30 complaints from area residents who say their signatures were forged by organizers of a recall attempt of the state’s most powerful legislative leader.
Two of those phony signatures were found by a former journalist, who combed through the petition signatures in recent days and found the names of two family members he had a hunch did not agree to sign the petitions.
“Just out of morbid curiosity and nothing better to do, apparently, on a Friday and the rest of the weekend, I started scrolling through,” Paul Sloth, a Rochester resident, said in an interview. “And as I’m scrolling, I see my sister in law’s name. And my brother in law.”
“It’s just really disturbing,” Dawn Haggerty, Sloth’s sister-in-law, said about Sloth finding her name. “It feels worse than when my credit card number got stolen.”
Supporters of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump are seeking to oust Assembly Speaker Robin Vos over his criticism of Trump and his unwillingness to break the law and undo the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election.
Recall organizers earlier this month submitted to the Wisconsin Elections Commission more than 10,000 signatures — nearly 4,000 more than required. But on Tuesday, elections commission staff determined the recall organizers did not obtain enough signatures from residents in the district Vos was elected in when the recall began, falling about 945 signatures short.
At the same time, Racine County prosecutors began receiving reports of area residents who did not agree to sign the petitions finding their names on the documents anyway.
Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson told WISN 12 her office has received 27 complaints alleging forged signatures. Hanson did not respond to multiple questions from the Journal Sentinel.
On Monday, the recall committee in a statement acknowledged the signatures the group submitted included forgeries but blamed the crime on “sabotage” and unidentified participants “recruiting individuals from outside Wisconsin.”
“While the orchestrator remains unidentified, we are dedicated to uncovering the truth in collaboration with law enforcement,” the group said in the statement.
Among the 1,300 pages of signatures submitted by the recall committee are petition circulators from across the country, including Georgia, Florida, Illinois and Oregon.
Haggerty said one of her chief concerns is finding out who hired the petition circulator who forged her signature.
The circulators attached to the petition documents containing the forged signatures of Haggerty and her husband list their residences as Union City, Georgia and Milwaukee, respectively. The Journal Sentinel could not find contact information for either circulator.
Brian Platt, a Portland, Oregon resident who spent three weeks in Racine County helping the committee collect signatures, said he was recruited by a group that helps politicos in election years gather signatures for a host of issues. He said the organizers of the group did not direct them to add signatures that weren’t obtained legally.
“They told us to go door to door and get people who lived in the counties they were looking to get signatures from to recall this elected official,” Platt said.
Vos has until the end of this week to challenge the submitted signatures, which could prompt the commission to investigate further depending on what Vos finds.
Vos said Tuesday his campaign in recent days hired a private investigator and assembled dozens of volunteers to comb through the hundreds of pages of petition documents submitted by a group of Donald Trump supporters seeking to recall Vos over his unwillingness to grant the former president’s requests to undo Wisconsin’s 2020 election.
The campaign has found forged signatures and felons working for the recall campaign, Vos said.
Vos has until Thursday to challenge the signatures submitted by the Recall Vos committee. He said Tuesday he expects to show up to 400 are duplicates along with “a ton of fraud,” including affidavits from Racine County residents who say they were lied to about what petition they were signing.
Commission staff does not confirm each signature is valid after receiving recall petitions.
“The information on the petition is presumed to be valid. The filing officer is not required to consult extrinsic resources in reviewing the petitions, but may do so if time permits,” according to elections commission guidance on recalls.
Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court is poised to clarify which Assembly district a potential recall election should be held in if a recall is triggered. The elections commission asked the court to clarify whether new electoral maps signed into law earlier this year apply to elections prior to August.
The court on Tuesday asked for responses to the question from relevant parties to a lawsuit that ultimately triggered the legislative action. But two of its three conservative justices objected to providing the clarity.
“This court should resist the urge to continue assuming powers and roles outside of its limited judicial purview,” Chief Justice Annette Ziegler wrote in her dissenting opinion. “... we are not the legal advisors for the Wisconsin Election Commission.”
Sloth, who said he’s not a supporter of Vos, said the episode underscores a need for tighter oversight.
“Knowing how upset my family members were, that they felt this violated ... It shouldn’t be this easy,” he said.