Dear Jeffery,
As the former chairman of the Brown County Democratic Party, I worked hard as a volunteer on Senator Dave Hansen's team helping to organize the challenge against the illegitimate recall effort.
Earlier this week, the State's Government Accountability Board (GAB) was supposed to have heard the presentation of the evidence of fraud that dominated the recall effort against Senator Hansen. As the Senator previously shared, we have documented paid solicitors trying to hide their whereabouts by providing false home addresses. We have also collected sworn affidavits of many voters who stated that these paid solicitors lied about the actual purpose of the petition.
Disappointingly, for reasons that aren't altogether clear, the GAB has postponed Senator Hansen's hearing along with those of two other Senators. Not surprisingly, those two other Senators also happen to be the other Democrats who are under attack by these corporate sponsored recall forces.
Frankly, this shouldn't be all that difficult a decision for the GAB. I have no idea why this is taking so long. After all, it was Senator Hansen's team that had to do the bulk of the hard work.
The GAB did NOT verify that those who signed the petition actually live in the district. They required that Senator Hansen's team individually map out every address if we wanted to challenge addresses as being outside the district.
The GAB did NOT verify the authenticity of signatures. They required that Senator Hansen's team check with voters if we wanted to ferret out the fraud perpetrated by the recall organizers.
The GAB did NOT verify that those who signed are legally permitted to vote in Wisconsin. They required that Senator Hansen's team compare each name with various voters lists if we wanted to ensure that only legal voters signed the petition.
The GAB expected Senator Hansen to conduct this massive review of thousands of pages of recall documents - and they gave him just a short 10 DAYS to do it. So Senator Hansen called upon our community of volunteers to supplement his tiny campaign staff - and we did what the recall forces thought was impossible. In just 10 days, we identified 5,552 signatures that were fraudulent or otherwise invalid. Senator Hansen presented the case in writing to the GAB on May 5th, in advance of a public hearing that was to occur shortly thereafter.
Yet the GAB has already spent 4 WEEKS looking over our evidence - and now they tell us they need more time! All they have to do is review what we presented - it was Senator Hansen's team that had to do the hard work documenting everything. Imagine how much more fraud we might have discovered if we had 4 weeks to review the petitions instead of just 10 days! Thank goodness I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories or I just might begin to get a bit suspicious.
The GAB has issued a statement that Senator Hansen might be able to present the evidence at a public hearing that could possibly occur "later in the week of June 6" - despite a court order that the GAB finish their work before then. Let's just hope that when they finally do hear the evidence in an open hearing, they adhere to both state and federal law and respect well-established legal precedent.
In other words, let's hope that the GAB actually invalidates the invalid signatures.
Thank you for standing with Senator Hansen during these fraudulent recall attacks. They're after him because he refused to to do the bidding of big business. I've known the Senator for years and I can tell you that he's just a working man who's trying to work hard for folks like us.
Tom Sieber, Former Chairman of the Brown County Democratic Party and a volunteer with Friends of Dave Hansen
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