Correction: GAB says dates are OK

MADISON - EDITOR'S NOTE: After this story aired, Government Accountability Board spokesman Reid Magney said he was mistaken when he told us recall petition signatures needed to be dated with four digits of the year. That is not the case, Magney now says. Read the update here . Our original report follows below:

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The tedious task of reviewing the more than 1.9 million recall signatures in Wisconsin is under way. Government Accountability Board staff are looking for invalid signatures and errors on the petition sheets.

At the same time, volunteers with incumbent Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators are also scrutinizing the petitions in a separate process. And the petitions are not error-free.

We asked GAB Public Information officer Reid Magney to explain some of the errors workers might be looking for.

"Is it all filled out correctly? Is the header on top correct? For each line is there a signature, an address, a complete date. You can't just sign 12-1-11. It has to be 12-1-2001," said Magney. "That's one of the requirements in the law, it has to be completely filled out and the bottom of the petition has to be completely filled out as well."

So far, only the petitions for the state senators have been posted online.

We reviewed some of the petitions targeting State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau). We found page after page showing the date not fully written out. On some petition pages it occurred on several of the signature lines. On other pages the date was abbreviated on every line, which, according to Magney, would be an error and could disqualify those signatures. So we contacted Magney once again for clarification, asking if what we found would be considered an error.

"Possibly, we'll have to see. But it has to be the full year spelled out," reiterated Magney by phone.

Lawyers for the incumbents will have the opportunity to challenge any signature or entire petition sheets due to errors in filling out the forms or ineligible names.

Lawyers for the petitioners will also be able to make an argument to keep any challenged names.

During last summer's review of recall petitions for nine state senators, the board eliminated thousands of names, but kept enough to certify each recall election.

We went back and looked at a sampling of last summer's petitions and found the same date discrepancy, but the signatures were not challenged.

Anyone at home with access to a computer can check the petitions too. Those who didn't sign a petition can look to see if their name was fraudulently added. And on the flip side someone who signed a petition can see if it was omitted from those turned in.

• Click here to see the petition website

Unfortunately, though, state law only allows the petitioners and the incumbent campaigns to raise objections.

"I think people who have concerns about their names appearing on the petitions can talk directly to the officeholders, or names not appearing can also talk with the petitioners," said Kevin Kennedy, GAB director.

The campaigns for the four state senators received copies of the petitions for their review on Jan. 20 and the courts gave them 20 days to review them for errors and ineligible names.

The governor and lieutenant governor campaigns were given 30 days to review the petitions starting the day after they receive them from the GAB, which was Friday for the governor. The clock will start ticking for the lieutenant governor's review sometime this week.

The Government Accountability Board plans to meet Feb. 7 to address how to handle complaints about the recall petitions and their signatures to take a look at the petitions.