Gov. Scott Walker’s decision not to challenge any of the recall signatures means that after a year of recall activity, Wisconsin is getting close to the main event.

The deadline for Walker to challenge recall signatures passed without incident Monday, leaving only a review by state elections officials between Wisconsin and third recall election for governor in U.S. history.

After receiving an extra 20 days to veto signatures, the Government Accountability Board denied Walker an additional two weeks. Despite Walker’s campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews’ claim that the GAB’s decision put them “on an impossible timeline,” information from a random vetting of signatures by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had already pointed toward an inevitable recall election.

According to the Journal Sentinel, about 15 percent of the 500,000 signatures at which they looked could not be verified, and they were using a review more vigorous than the one used by the GAB. Matthews concurred with that number saying 10 to 20 percent of the signatures they looked at were questionable. You could double that number and still not be close to throwing out enough signatures to stop the recall. The bottom line is the questionable signatures storyline has run its course.

I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. Yes, we still have to wait until March 19, which is the GAB deadline for validating the signatures. But after that, it’s game time. A year and a month after this whole thing got started, we are finally getting down to business.

I wrote last year that the political turnout in the Senate recall elections and the Wisconsin Supreme Court election were a pregame to the main event. Now we are finally there, with one last official move by the GAB, we won’t have to continue this debate in any auxiliary avenues. Unless the GAB asks for more time in reviewing the signatures, which seems less likely following the governor’s decision, the next 10 weeks will be all about answering the questions that have lingered in Wisconsin since Walker’s union busting bill last year.

I want to know what Wisconsin thinks about all of this. The trend of recall is not in Walker’s favor, with the Republicans losing two senate seats this summer. But at the same time, the election results have been mixed, with Judge David Prosser winning what was spun as a conservative victory over challenger Judge JoAnne Kloppenberg in last year’s Supreme Court race.

Now, though, we are going to get the chance as citizens to have an official say on the direction of the Walker administration. Let’s find out if Walker was right, and the opponents of stripping collective bargaining were a vocal minority. Let’s see if Wisconsinites will hold Walker accountable for the last six months of job loss, for his cuts to education and a John Doe investigation that just will not go away.

I don’t know how it is going to play out. But the actions of the last year made it plain the people of this state wanted to have their say, and it is definitely going to be an interesting next couple of months.

John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.