A group that's aiming to recall Robin Vos, the speaker of Wisconsin’s state Assembly and a top target of former President Donald Trump, said it has submitted the number of signatures needed to move forward with an effort to oust the Republican leader from office.
Recall Vos said it had gathered more than the nearly 7,000 required signatures from voters in Vos' district. The filing deadline for the recall effort is Monday.
"I carry with me the voice of more than 10,000 Racine County residents," the group's recall petitioner, Matt Snorek, said at a news conference outside the Wisconsin Election Commission shortly before it delivered the signatures. "Together we are challenging the status quo, driven by the numerous ways in which Speaker Robin Vos has failed us."
Riley Vetterkind, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, confirmed that the group had submitted signatures but said that they had not yet been reviewed.
Members of the bipartisan commission are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the recall petition. The six-member panel will decide whether the petition is sufficient to call for a recall election. An officeholder targeted by a recall effort can also challenge the petition within 10 days of its submission.
Vos did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
Snorek characterized the petition as being driven in part by comments he said Vos made about Trump's candidacy this year.
“I don’t think Robin Vos should be going and working against a conservative candidate, when they’re the leading candidate, because in my opinion that runs us the risk of getting Joe Biden elected here in 2024,” Snorek said.
Snorek also pointed to Vos’ not advancing an effort to impeach the state’s chief election official, Meagan Wolfe, whom Wisconsin Republicans have criticized over how she conducted the 2020 election. Wolfe has also been outspoken in condemning election fraud falsehoods promoted by Trump and his allies in Wisconsin.
Vos, the longest-serving speaker in Wisconsin history, has been a target of Trump and his supporters after Trump lost the battleground state in the 2020 general election by about 20,000 votes. He refused Trump's urging to dismiss the 2020 results during what he said was a call from Trump in July 2022 demanding that he retroactively apply a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that restricted the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in future elections.
Vos had launched a probe into the election results under pressure from Trump, which found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Trump also campaigned against Vos' re-election bid in 2022, endorsing challenger Adam Steen. Vos ultimately prevailed in that primary by 3 percentage points — the slimmest margin in his political career. He was re-elected as speaker in 2022.