Last week, Misty Polewczynski, lead organizer of the petition to recall Gov. Tony Evers, announced Monday in a Facebook post that she does not have enough petition signatures to move forward after claiming last week she had more than enough signatures to initiate action to recall Evers.
Per state law, once a petition has been put into circulation, it has 60 days to garner enough signatures to equal 25% of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, they would need roughly 670,000 signatures for the next steps in the recall process to take place.
Members of the Republican Party have iterated that focusing on the reelection of President Donald Trump is of greater importance to the party.
Wisconsin GOP chairman Andrew Hitt released a statement on behalf of the GOP.
“Given the governor’s inability to keep Wisconsinites in Kenosha safe and deliver basic government functions, it’s no wonder that a group of citizens would be motivated to have new leadership in the Governor’s Office,” Hitt said. “We will continue to focus and urge others to focus efforts on reelecting President Trump.”
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Polewczynski has been previously convicted of forgery, writing worthless checks and bail jumping nearly 15 years ago.
Monday, Polewczynski posted on a Facebook group about her intentions to mislead the media about the progress of the petition, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“I’m going to do an interview this afternoon and will probably make up some crap to tell them,” Polewczynski said in the post.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Polewczynski would not specify the exact number of signatures the petition had received. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported that Republican Party of Marinette County chairwoman Betty Hensel has been holding on to the petitions to get her own name removed from them. Doing so would prevent any petitions Hensel gathered from being counted.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, the petition was put into action Aug. 28 following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Petitioners criticized Evers’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest in Kenosha. A petition was also started to recall Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
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In 2012, the Democratic Party successfully gathered over 900,000 signatures to recall former Gov. Scott Walker, but Walker won his recall election. Evers succeeded Walker after defeating him in the 2016 midterm elections.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, in late August, conservative commentator James Wigderson reprimanded efforts to recall Evers referencing Republican success in fighting Walker’s recall.
“Republicans made the case that recalls should only be used in very limited circumstances to get rid of politicians who were corrupt and using the office for their benefit,” Wigderson wrote.
