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The head of the campaign to recall Sen. Robert Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie) says the group has gathered enough signatures to force a recall election.

Dan Hunt, chairman of Taxpayers to Recall Robert Wirch, says his organization has "well over" the 13,537 signatures required to force Wirch into a recall election, though he said the group still has a goal to collect 18,000, in case some of the signatures are disqualified. He said it's likely the signatures would be filed with the state Government Accountability Board next week.

"Let the voters of Senate District 22 decide whether Senator Wirch was justified when he left the Senate to flee to Illinois," Hunt said in a statement, referring to a tactic used by Democratic state senators to stall a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill. After three weeks, Republicans stripped the bill of items that made a Democratic presence necessary, and passed it without Democratic votes.

The group seeking to recall Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) is the only one of 16 recall campaigns against eight Republican and eight Democratic state senators that has filed its signatures with the state. About 21,700 signatures were filed Friday, well over the 15,588 needed to force an election.

The GAB has 31 days to certify the signatures after they're submitted, and if they're found to be sufficient, it can set an election for six weeks later -- but that schedule could be slowed by court challenges, or by request from the GAB.

We've left a message with Wirch's office seeking a comment on Hunt's announcement.