The committee circulating a petition to recall Ald. Noah Fiedler over his support of a Wal-mart Supercenter on the city’s northern end will have to start from scratch after gathering more than half of the required signatures.

The State of Wisconsin requires the person who files the recall paperwork to be a resident of the district the elected official represents. But Janet Napientek, who filed the paperwork for the Committee to Recall Noah Fiedler, does not live in Fiedler’s district.

“State law is actually unclear,” said Kyle Richmond, spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board’s elections division. “The board has interpreted that at least one person who files has to be a qualified elector of that district.”

That means all the signatures gathered since June 6 are invalid. To trigger a recall election, the group must gather at least 429 signatures, or 25% of the number of votes cast for governor in 2006 in Fiedler’s district, according to city records.

Orville Seymer, field operations director for CRG Network, took responsibility for the mistake and said the committee will regroup and refile the paperwork this week. Seymer is working with Muskego First, which Napientek co-founded, to coordinate the recall effort.

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