Officials Hope to Have All Recalls on Same Day

1/14/12 – State officials say they’ll try to have all recall elections on the same date this summer. The Government Accountability Board plans to make that request when it asks a judge for more time to review petitions against the governor, lieutenant governor, and four G-O-P senators. State law gives the Board 31 days to decide whether there are enough valid signatures to hold recall elections. But because the massive volumes of the current petitions, the Board says it will take longer than 60 days to review up to one-and-a-half million signatures. A judge ordered the Accountability Board last week to find and delete signatures which are obviously false and duplicated. Yesterday, board officials said they would spend around 100-thousand dollars on computer software that will scan the signatures and put them into a database where they can be more easily evaluated. Because of that task, officials say it could be June or later before general recall elections could take place.