A group seeking to recall Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) announced Thursday that it would not be filing signatures with the state.

That makes it the fourth failed recall campaign against a Democratic state senator.

Jeff Horn, with the Committee to Recall Mark Miller, said the group had come up 268 signatures short of the 20,352 needed to force an election at Tuesday's filing deadline.

There had been a possibility that the group would consolidate with another recall effort against Miller, launched by the Utah-based American Patriot Recall Coalition, and use a May 4 deadline that group had to collect enough signatures. But Horn wrote in an email this morning that volunteers decided not to consolidate with the coalition.

"We did this because we feel that the APRC is a front group for either wrecking conservative causes or for simple money making," he said in the email.

A recent article in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah, raised numerous questions about Dan Baltes, the head of the coalition. The story reported on time he served in the Idaho prison system in the 1980s and '90s under a different name, for grand theft, forgery and writing bad checks.

Horn pointed out that none of the three recall campaigns that filed signatures last week against Democratic Sens. Jim Holperin of Conover, Dave Hansen of Green Bay or Robert Wirch of Pleasant Prairie were launched by the Utah group.

The other three recalls of Democrats that failed were all launched by the coalition, as was the recall of state Sen. Julie Lassa, which has until May 16 to file its signatures.

Recall signatures were filed Thursday afternoon against Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay), the sixth Republican against whom petitions were presented, according to the recall group's Facebook page. Two other recall campaigns against Republicans are still collecting signatures.

In all, recall campaigns were launched against eight Republicans and eight Democrats in the fight over Gov. Scott Walker's budget initiatives.