March 20, 2024

A group of MAGA/Big Lie conspiracy theorists had started a recall attempt of Wisconsin Speaker Robin Vos. They had their undies in a bundle because they felt he didn't do enough to turn over the 2020 elections, including impeaching elections committee director Meagan Wolfe. They turned in about 10,000 signatures - 4,000 more than needed - yet still fell woefully short of the required number of valid signatures, mostly because they were collecting signatures from both the district that Vos was elected in and the district that it will become later this year. However, they failed to get enough signatures from the old district and ended up short by 945 signatures.

If that wasn't pitiful enough, Vos and friends have accused the recall organizers of several violations, including duplicate signatures, having felons from out of state collecting signatures, lying to people about what they were signing and forging signatures..

On Tuesday, while speaking to reporters, Vos unloaded on the recall organizers like any sore winner would:

There's a ton of fraud. The challenge we have is that the people who organized this are so out of touch with reality... And I'm just going to keep saying it over and over again. They are morons. They are stupid. These people do not deserve the respect that anyone gave them in the media over the course of the last three months. They literally now believe that I organized the recall and that I went out and found people to circulate and discredit their efforts.

Vos also said that they found that some of the people collecting signatures were actually felons from out of state.

The recall organizers did admit that there were problems, but it also sure seems that Vos was grossly exaggerating their position:

On Monday, the recall committee in a statement acknowledged the signatures the group submitted included forgeries but blamed the crime on "sabotage" and unidentified participants "recruiting individuals from outside Wisconsin."

"While the orchestrator remains unidentified, we are dedicated to uncovering the truth in collaboration with law enforcement," the group said in the statement. A spokesman for the committee did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

It is completely plausible that the recall organizers - all MAGAts - were that inept. But it is also quite plausible that Vos had people signing their names and then complaining of forgeries or of having people acting as signers to put down fake names. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two camps.

The greatest unknown is just how this massive disarray and foll out among the Republicans is bad for Joe Biden.

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