Updated - Election Day in Wisconsin

Solidarity for Wisconsin families

Update V: Live recall election results at Journal-Sentinel and Mother Jones.

Update IV: Gilbert Brown, Famed Green Bay Packer, Urges Wisconsin Voters to Recall Republicans - We Are Wisconsin released a robocall campaign on Tuesday featuring mammoth former Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Gilbert Brown. The call urges voters to replace six Republican state Senators who supported Governor Scott Walker's controversial budget bill:

"Hello this is Gilbert Brown, defensive lineman for the '97 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, calling on behalf of We Are Wisconsin. I have a message for you about Tuesday's election, I know a little bit about playing defense and right now it is time to defend Wisconsin. We are holding the line, putting our children's education before big corporate tax giveaways. It is up to voters like you to make the difference. Please gather your friends and neighbors and go to the polls on Tuesday from 7 am to 8 pm and support Nancy Nusbaum for Senate."

Update III: Walker signs gerrymandering bills redrawing political boundaries, hours before the deadline. "It is now clear that Gov. Walker signed these redistricting maps into law in a manner intended to hide his actions with only one goal in mind: giving himself and his fellow Republicans a monopoly on power in our state and dodging accountability for their anti-middle-class extremism," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha).

Update II: From a Fond du Lac voter this morning: "I wonder if I’m the only person who gets so upset at poll workers having to ask for picture ID.  The man behind me in line, said 'Well, there’s no trouble here, but in Milwaukee (read black), there’s thousands of cases of vote fraud.'  I told him that’s not true, and asked if he could even conceive of people wanting to vote so much that they would actually commit fraud (that’s not the right word anyway).  I told him it’s been my experience that you cannot get people to vote easily enough. I think people just  believe what they are told, don’t question anything and march in lockstep.  I guess he’s a Republican."

Update: Presidential-election turn-out level in Fond du Lac. At Rosenow Elementary School, 385 people had already voted at 10:20 A.M, with a 30-minute wait in line.

For continuous updates, see Uppity Wisconsin and look back here.

The order of the day is: Get Out the Vote [GOTV].

Today is election day for Wisconsin recalls.

In one race rated a toss-up, Rep. Sandy Pasch (Whitefish Bay) has volunteers already lining up outside the doors this morning to challenge Sen. Alberta Darling in Senate district 8 just north of Milwaukee.

Because of the enormous outpouring, an insider this morning is now saying Pasch is likely to knock off Darling.

Democracy is coming

For continuous updates, see Uppity Wisconsin and Blue Cheddar, TeamsterNation and look back here.
The order of the day is: Get Out the Vote [GOTV].

As a life-long Wisconsin citizen I can tell you the recall race for Senate district 18 (Sen. Randy Hopper's (R-Empire) seat) is a bellwether for the other five recall elections in  Republican state senate districts, all of which one should bear in mind were gerrymandered after the 2000 Census to stay Republican.

Hooper narrowly defeated Jessica King by 163 votes for the same seat in 2008, and Hopper is facing King again in this historically leaning Republican area.

Candidates - 2008 Race             Votes    Percent

Randy Hopper (R)                         41,904   50.05%
Jessica King (D)                            41,741   49.86%

Enough signature were gathered to recall Randy Hopper in just a matter of weeks after the recall registration date [from which citizens have 60 days to gather recall signatures], far early of the deadline for the required 15,269 signatures and petition to be delivered to the GAB on the deadline date of May 2.

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) staff verified 23,127 signatures to recall Hopper.

Sources close to the recall effort told me that after that, signatures gathered by the 100s of the recall volunteers also served effectively as campaigning for voters hostile to Randy Hopper for the majority of the 60-days period prior to May 2.

All of the signatures are open to the public on the GAB site.

Some 55 percent of Hopper's 2008 vote total was gathered in recall signatures against Hopper alone.