In the midst of opponents to the recall effort raising allegations of fraud, the Government Accountability Board recently announced it would need more time and additional workers to review the petitions.

The GAB released a memo Thursday that said the body would need an additional month and 50 temporary workers to review the recall signatures for Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The memo said an estimated 60 days would be needed to review the signatures, as opposed to the 31-day time period afforded to the GAB by state statutes. 

According to GAB spokesperson Reid Magney, the additional time is no different than the time the board received in the spring for several recall efforts against senators in the state Legislature.

“The fact that we’re going to need more time is not out of the ordinary,” Magney said. “It’s something we’ve been saying since last February.”

Magney said the relatively large number of additional workers that the GAB is requesting increased from the spring’s recall elections, when the board hired less than 20 temporary workers to aid in the signature-reviewing process.

According to Magney, the increase in workers is due to the increase in signatures, which is projected to be near 1.5 million in number. In comparison, Magney estimated the signatures gathered in the spring recalls to be near 200,000 total.

Magney addressed fraud rumors surrounding the recall efforts and said United Wisconsin, the organization dedicated to Walker’s recall, has said it has a process in place to find and remove duplicate signatures in their petitions.

Calls made to United Wisconsin were not returned as of press time.

Ben Sparks, spokesperson for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said fraud has been a legitimate concern in the recalls and questioned the effectiveness of efforts to remove duplicate signatures.

“Regarding any process put forth by the democrats, checking as many signatures as they claim they will get is a costly and timely process, and they have not put forth any details that make me believe they have any kind of serious mechanism in place to remove duplicate signatures,” Sparks said.

Sparks also said fraud is something the Republican Party will continue to monitor carefully through outlets such as the Recall Integrity Center, where citizens are encouraged to share concerns about various recall efforts across the state.

Magney said it is the incumbent committee’s responsibility to go through the recall petitions and find signatures it believes are illegitimate. The committee then hands those signatures over to the GAB to inspect and ultimately determine if they should be disqualified.

According to Sparks, signing a petition multiple times can be illegal if an individual does so with intent to inflate the number of signatures. He also charged liberal groups like One Wisconsin Now have actively encouraged people to sign petitions more than once.

“With respect to the fraud and the duplicate signature issues, liberal special interests behind the recalls have shown they’re willing to stoop to any level in order to force this recall effort on Wisconsin families who elected Walker with an overwhelming majority,” Sparks said.