Organizers submitted recall petitions Thursday against three Democrats and one Republican, upping the amount of petitions filed against Wisconsin state senators in light of votes on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill to eight.

Petitions against Sens. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, Jim Holperin, D-Conover, and Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, were all handed to the Government Accountability Board throughout the day.

Recall campaign managers said they were happy to have collected the required amount of signatures in light of the several weeks of work put into the campaigns. 

“It was a feeling of exhilaration to consider the fact that thousands of hours were spent by volunteers to make this happen,” said Dan Hunt, manager of the Wirch recall campaign.

Hunt said it was tough to get the amount of signatures necessary and thinks the bar is set relatively high to submit a recall petition. He also said the recall campaign had plenty of opposition from individuals who were opposed to the recall and tried to stop them.

David Vanderleest, an organizer for the campaign to recall Hansen, said his campaign did not come across any struggles and exceeded the requirement by 5,000 signatures.

“We really didn’t have any obstacles in our campaign,” Vanderleest said. “We worked very hard by putting ourselves in high visible areas with signs saying Recall Hansen and the people came to us. We also had people go door to door.”

Vanderleest said he had strong confidence Hansen would lose the recall election but was unsure of who would challenge him. He said he hoped a non-RINO, or Republican in name only, candidate would challenge Hansen.

The Recall Wirch campaign used a variety of strategies to collect the necessary signatures.

“We were able to go door to door, have signature drive-thrus, place inserts into newspapers and have TV commercials. We did a lot in order to get here,” Hunt said.

The Wirch recall campaign also differed in how the organizers funded the efforts. The campaign spent a little more than $12,000, but the funding came from individuals within the state, which Hunt said would classify their campaign as more of a “grassroots funding effort.” 

Vanderleest said the Hansen recall campaign spent less than $2,000, most of which came from the organizer’s own pocket.

Facing the possibility of a recall election, Hansen said he remained confident in his decision to go to Illinois during the budget repair bill debate.

“Never will I regret standing up for the workers’ rights and preventing the middle class from being eliminated,” Hansen said. “In life you need to take a stand in what you believe in and there may be results that aren’t good.”

Hansen said he was not surprised the recall campaign against him collected enough signatures. He claimed that signatures were being sold on Craigslist for 50 cents each, with people from as far as Texas and Colorado signing the petitions.

Darling also had recall petitions handed in against her Thursday. The Recall Alberta Darling Committee handed in an estimated 30,000 signatures, more than 9,400 signatures higher than the required amount.

A total of three Democrats and five Republicans have had recall petitions filed against them.