Group leading recall effort against Gov. Walker hit with cyber attack

The website of United Wisconsin, the group leading the recall campaign against Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was temporarily knocked offline by a cyber attack on Tuesday. The website was apparently subjected to a distributed denial of service attack.

Wisconsin Democrats and United Wisconsin had teamed up to a launch a campaign on Tuesday to recall Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

“If Scott Walker and the Republican Party are really concerned with protecting the integrity of the recall process, they will immediately condemn the criminal cyber attack on United Wisconsin’s website and call on Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to launch a full investigation with the assistance of the FBI," the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said in a statement.

“The laws of Wisconsin and the United States were clearly broken tonight in a desperate and illegal attempt to stifle the voice of the people by denying access to Wisconsinites seeking important information on how they can join our grassroots effort to recall Scott Walker. The criminals that launched this attack must be apprehended."

Democrats need to collect 540,206 valid signatures in a 60-day period to force a recall election against Walker. Under Wisconsin law, any elected official who has served at least one year of their current term can be recalled from office.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin will also launch recall campaigns on Tuesday targeting Republican state Sens. Pam Galloway, Terry Moulton and Van Wanggaard.

Democrats gained two seats in the Wisconsin Senate in recall elections this summer, but fell short of the three seats needed to gain a majority. Three recall elections against Democratic state senators were unsuccessful.

Both Republicans and Democrats claimed victory in the recall elections. But Democrats noted that 5 of 6 recall elections took place in Republican-leaning districts, exposing the vulnerability of Republicans in the 2012 elections. In total, Democrats won 5 of the 9 recall contests.

Photo credit: Megan McCormick