(The Center Square) – Whether Wisconsin’s assembly speaker will be recalled may depend on what the Wisconsin Supreme Court says.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday asked the high court for guidance in dealing with the Vos recall.
“We’re looking at do the signatures have to come from the old 63rd, or the new 66th or the new 33rd?” Commission chair Don Mills asked at a special meeting Tuesday morning.
Vos currently represents the 63rd Assembly District, but that district was declared unconstitutional by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in December. It was essentially erased under the new legislative maps that Gov. Tony Evers signed last month.
Vos’ new district would be the new 33rd Assembly District. There are some recall signatures from the new 66th Assembly District that are from communities that used to be part of Vos’ 63rd district.
Elections Commissioner Bob Spindell said the Wisconsin Supreme Court needs to answer the questions about which signatures can be counted and which district will be used for the recall election.
“We can’t hold an election on the unconstitutional-defined lines of the old districts,” Spindell said.
The commission also questioned whether there will be enough valid signatures to move ahead with a recall election.
Most of the recall signatures are from the Vos’ current 63rd Assembly District. But the commission said recall organizers are about 900 signatures short of the 6,850 that are necessary to trigger a recall. The commission added that there are 3,364 recall signatures from Vos’ new 33rd Assembly District.
Recall Vos organizers have been plagued with questions about their signatures, and how they went about collecting those signatures.
A report from Wisconsin Right Now shows actual signatures and shows that many people who signed the Recall Vos petition are not from Wisconsin or are from nowhere near the Racine County area.
Vos said that he’s planning to follow up on those questionable signatures.
“Numerous reports in recent weeks of illegal alien circulators, bullying students in school yards, illegally paying people to sign and collecting signatures outside of district lines will make it necessary to evaluate each individual signature,” Vos said. “We have assembled a team to do that.”
