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GAB OKAYS REPUBLICANS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS
WPR News - GAB okays Republicans running as Democrats
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Tuesday April 17, 2012
by Shawn Johnson
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(MADISON) Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board has voted unanimously to let six Republicans run as Democrats in the upcoming recall elections. The move gives Republicans more control over the timing of the races.
The vote by the six judges who sit on the Government Accountability Board means there will be Democratic primaries in all of this year's recall elections. And for Republicans, it means four GOP state Senators facing recall won't have to stand for election on the same day as the Democratic primary for governor.
Republican attorney Joe Olsen told the board before its vote that it had no authority to bump these candidates from the ballot, "They turned in their required paperwork. They have the required number of signatures. And their name belongs on the ballot."
Olsen said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution did not allow the board to question any candidate's desire or motivation to be on the ballot. In other words, it wasn't the board's place to question whether these were real Democrats or fakes.
But Democratic Attorney Jeremy Levinson said the board didn't need to speculate. That's because Republicans themselves have said publicly and often that these candidates are only on the ballot to change the timing of the election, "We don't need to define a political belief. We don't need to look in the hearts and minds. We need to take them at their word that this is the scheme to manipulate the election that they have told us it was."
Levinson said that meant they were lying on state elections forms--enough in and of itself to be removed from the ballot. But Government Accountability Board staff said these candidates were breaking no laws. Director Kevin Kennedy said it should be left to voters to decide whether their behavior should be rewarded or punished.
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