Recall Efforts to Hit Greenfield Polling Locations

Petitioners plan to be outside of election polling locations Tuesday collecting signatures in an attempt to recall some legislators, including State Senator Mary Lazich.

Recall campaigns have popped up around the state, many in an attempt to recall Republican legislators who voted in favor of Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill.

Lazich, one of two senators who represent Greenfield, is among those targeted.

Greenfield City Clerk Jennifer Goergen said in an email that a representative of the Recall Mary Lazich group had informed her that petitioners would be stationed at the Community Center and Whitnall High School on Tuesday.

Goergen advised the group of the following rules as outlined by the Government Accountability Board:

• It is permissible to circulate a petition within 100 feet of the entrance to the polling place if it is unrelated to the candidate contests/referenda on the ballot, subject to any separate rules governing the use of and access to the property.
• Circulators must refrain from “campaign activity” for any contest on the ballot while on public property within 100 feet of the entrance of a polling place. This includes any verbal or written statements on a recall petition referring to a candidate or issue on the ballot.
• Circulators should not solicit signatures from voters in line to vote, but rather wait until voters are leaving the polling place.
• Circulators should not stand in or block the entrance to the building.  G.A.B. recommends circulators remain at least 10 feet from the path of travel.
• The G.A.B. has concluded that petitioning in the immediate voting area or within the building containing the polling place is inherently disruptive.  Election officials should order persons petitioning inside the building to leave the building.
• The actions of the circulators should not in any way interfere with or distract voters or election officials, interrupt or disturb the election proceedings.
• If a circulator is causing a disruption of the polling place, the chief inspector should immediately address the situation and ask the circulator to cease disruptive activity. Circulators who do not cease the disruptive activity will be ordered to leave the polling place and remain outside the 100-foot zone.  If the circulator continues to disrupt the polling place, the chief inspector should contact law enforcement to enforce the order.

"Ours is a neighbor-to-neighbor effort, so our volunteers are being trained in what the law does and does not permit," said Recall Mary Lazich spokesperson Elizabeth Galewski, a Franklin native and Whitnall High School graduate. "Our intent is to be visible so that those voters who wish to do so can sign the recall petition at this convenient time. Of course, if others do not wish to sign the petition, it is their right to refrain as well."