This post originally appeared at https://wisconsindailystar.com/news/recall-vos-organizers-shift-blame-for-faulty-signatures-recall-failures/tcsquare/2024/03/20/

by Benjamin Yount

The people behind the Recall Vos effort continue to say they didn’t collect potentially fraudulent signatures and are hinting that a conspiracy is to blame.

Recall Vos organizers on Monday tried to shift the blame for their apparent failure to get enough signatures to trigger a recall election.

“Recall Vos has faced deliberate obstacles intended to derail our efforts, orchestrated by those adept in manipulative political tactics. This sabotage involved recruiting individuals from outside Wisconsin to introduce fraudulent signatures, attempting to compromise our campaign’s credibility. While the orchestrator remains unidentified, we are dedicated to uncovering the truth in collaboration with law enforcement,” the group said in a statement.

Recall Vos hired its own team to collect the nearly 7,000 signatures they would need to force a recall election. Last week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said the group was at least 900 signatures short.

The news came just days before the district attorney in Racine County invited people to file identity theft reports if their names showed up on a recall petition they didn’t sign.

Recall organizers last week said they support that investigation and tried to show support again in Monday’s statement.

“Recall Vos has meticulously followed every rule. Acknowledging the limitations within Wisconsin’s petition self-authentication rules, our team implemented additional verification steps to guarantee the authenticity of each signature. In one instance, encountering about 400 notably pristine signatures, our volunteers conducted extensive in-person verifications. None of these signatures could be verified, affirming our commitment to integrity by excluding them from our submission to the Wisconsin Election Commission,” organizers said. “It is worth noting, however, that despite our vigilance, a few unverified petitions slipped through due to a volunteer oversight, a regrettable yet isolated incident.”

The Recall Vos group then wandered into conspiracy theory territory.

“It is crucial to highlight that this situation, while concerning, pales in comparison to the overwhelming support from the citizens of Racine County, evidenced by the thousands of legitimate signatures collected. Unfortunately, there appears to be a concerted effort within certain local media narratives to distract from this significant community mobilization and to downplay the troubling connections between Vos and the Chinese Communist Party,” the group said.

Vos has said, since the beginning, that the recall effort is being driven by a small group of Racine County locals who have tried and failed to run against him for years. He said the recall effort is a waste of time, and a waste of money.

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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Robin Vos” by Wisconsin State Representative Robin Vos.

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