Efforts to Recall Mary Lazich Appear to Have Fallen Short

Organizers of The Recall Lazich drive appear to have fallen short of the necessary signatures to unseat State Senator Mary Lazich, who represents the 28th District, including part of Greenfield.

Today is the deadline for signatures to be turned into the Government Accountability Board. The Recall Lazich group needed approximately 21,000 signatures, and according to a news release, the group had approximately 19,000 as of noon Monday.

"Senator Lazich ran unopposed in the last election, so many of the people who have signed the recall petition are the same people who voted for her," Franklin native and Recall Lazich spokesperson Elizabeth Galewski said in the release. "Quite simply, every signature is a victory. And we have collected thousands and thousands of signatures."

But while the news release's headline of "Recall Lazich Effort Ends Just Short of Goal" implies the effort did not require the necessary number of signatures, Galewski's comments in the release say it is not certain.

The official committee that registered with the GAB is affiliated with the Wisconsin Democratic Party, while the Recall Lazich drive is a self-organized group of volunteers who collected signatures. The gap between the groups made it difficult to say with certainty how many signatures have been collected.

"Everyone wants to know if we've got the numbers," Galewski said. "The truth is, that we won't really know if we've collected the necessary signatures until we see whether or not the Democratic Party files the signatures with the GAB. If they do file, then we won't know whether or not we've triggered a recall election until the GAB validates the signatures."