The effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker has been so all-consuming in Wisconsin that the upcoming presidential primary election here is attracting little interest among voters or political activists. 
 
 FILE - In this March 10, 2012, file photo, the Solidarity Singers lead a crowd in song at the end of a rally to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in front of the state capitol building in Madison, Wis.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this March 10, 2012, file photo, labor groups and others rally in front of the state capitol building in Madison, Wis. to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The effort to recall Walker has... (Associated Press) 
 
 Even the head of Mitt Romney's campaign in Wisconsin says that he knows voters are too distracted to pay much attention to the April 3 vote. 
 
 "People are not focused on the presidential," said Ted Kanavas, a former state senator and Romney's campaign co-chair. "They are totally focused on the recall because truthfully they should be." 
 
 Thus, with the election only a little more than a week away, Wisconsin is a black hole in a race that has been fiercely contested coast to coast since January, a sharp contrast to the recent contests in other Midwestern states like Michigan and Ohio. 
 
 Volunteers working on the national campaign are few and far between. About 30 times more Republican activists are tied up helping Walker win his recall race than helping GOP front-runner Romney win the nomination, Kanavas estimates. Romney's campaign has only one office in Wisconsin, compared to the 21 opened by Walker. 
 
 Even Republican voters who are usually interested in politics say they don't care about the primary, in which Romney, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul will compete for the state's 42 delegates. 
 
 "I don't think anybody looks forward to more politics," said Travis Winder, 33, of Fitchburg. He added, "I'm looking forward to the primary being over and the presidential race being over." 
 
 The recall election is likely to be held in June. The campaign over Walker's fate has been going on for months, with television advertising, mailings and maneuvering over the mechanics of the recall process. Organized labor and Democratic critics targeted Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators after Walker won approval from the GOP-controlled Legislature for effectively ending collective bargaining for most public employees. 
 
 The fight over the legislation prompted demonstrations of up to 100,000 people at the state Capitol last winter, and made Wisconsin the focus of the national fight over labor rights. 
 
 Walker has run television ads almost nonstop since mid-November when the recall petitions first hit the street. 
 
 State Rep. Robin Vos said Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus asked him a couple weeks ago about the chatter in the state about the upcoming presidential primary. 
 
 "And I said, `Reince, I hate to burst your bubble, but nobody in Wisconsin is talking about the presidential primary,'" Vos said. 
 
 Other Wisconsin races have also been overshadowed, including the contest for an open U.S. Senate seat. 
 
 "The upcoming recall election has taken everything else off the map," said Mike McCabe, director of the independent watchdog group the Wisconsin Democracy campaign. 
 
 Bob Anderson, 61, a welder from Coon Valley in western Wisconsin, said he plans to vote in the primary, probably for Romney, but has been too distracted by the Walker recall to think about the race. 
 
 Of the recall, he said, "You kind of want to get that thing done first, then worry about the rest." 
 
 So far, the presidential candidates haven't helped raise their profiles. They haven't campaigned in the state and the first television ads, coming from Romney's super PAC Restore Our Future, didn't start airing until March. That PAC has spent more than $2 million on ads in Wisconsin while Rick Santorum has only been able to answer with about $50,000. With primary contests stacked up close together on the election calendar this year, candidates sometimes haven't made many personal appearances in a state until right before a vote. 
 
 To avoid alienating any Republicans, Walker hasn't endorsed one of the presidential candidates. 
 
 "With this recall, I can't afford to be focused on anything but that," Walker told the Associated Press. ||||| A recall election was officially ordered Friday against embattled first-term Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker after more than 900,000 signatures were collected on petitions to force a vote. 
 
 The Government Accountability Board voted 5-0 to order the recall, a move that has been expected for weeks given the high number of signatures gathered between November and January. It took 540,208 signatures to trigger a recall. 
 
 Assuming a Democratic primary is necessary, it will be May 8. The actual recall vote then will be June 5. Three Democrats already have announced they are running and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in 2010, has said he would announce his intentions before Tuesday. 
 
 There have been only two successful gubernatorial recalls in U.S. history, against California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 and North Dakota Gov. Lynn Frazier in 1921. 
 
 Walker was targeted for recall after he pushed through a law last year that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most state workers. It also forced the workers to contribute more to their pension and health care costs, which amounted to a cut in pay. 
 
 Walker argued the changes were needed to help balance the state's budget, while Democrats and other opponents said the true intention was to weaken the power of unions, which have traditionally opposed Republicans. 
 
 A passionate fight ensued in Wisconsin, the first state to enact a comprehensive collective bargaining law in 1959 and the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees. 
 
 Protests raged for weeks and grew as large as 100,000 people. But Walker and Republicans who controlled the Legislature never wavered and they passed the law even though all 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois in a failed attempt to block it. ||||| Despite conservatives' fears of an army of Mickey Mouses and Adolf Hitlers signing recall petitions against Gov. Scott Walker, elections officials found only five fake names and nearly 901,000 valid signatures collected to recall the Republican governor — far more than enough needed for the election to go forward. 
 
 The state Government Accountability Board is scheduled to meet Friday morning to vote on the findings of board staff and set dates for the recall elections. 
 
 GAB staff said in a memo released Thursday that 900,938 valid signatures were collected on petitions seeking to recall Walker, and about 808,990 were gathered on those seeking to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The minimum needed to trigger a recall was 540,208 signatures for each of them. 
 
 If the board orders elections on Friday as expected, recall primary elections — if necessary — are expected to be held on May 8, followed by a June 5 general election. At least three Democrats are running for governor, and another three have said they are running for lieutenant governor, making primaries likely. Four Republican senators also face recall. 
 
 Recall organizers began circulating petitions in mid-November and submitted the signatures in mid-January. Elections officials were granted two extensions to review the signatures, a task that was conducted at a for-a-time-undisclosed state facility in Madison under tight security. The findings from the GAB's review was reported in Thursday's memo. 
 
 Elections officials said that during that review they found just five fake names of the 931,053 submitted on the Walker petitions: Adolf Hitler, Mick E. Mous, Donald L. Duck, Fungky Van Den Elzen, and I Love Scott Walker Thanks. 
 
 Staff also identified 4,001 duplicate names, and struck 26,109 incomplete signatures. Staff recommended striking just over 30,000 signatures from Walker's petitions, or about 3 percent of the total number of signatures submitted. Similarly, they suggested striking about 33,000 signatures from Kleefisch petitions because of duplicates or incomplete signatures. 
 
 Several other names that GAB staff members flagged as potentially fictitious were found in the statewide voter registration database or telephone directories, including Princess High and Mohammed Ali, the memo said. 
 
 If Walker loses the election, Walker would be the first Wisconsin governor, and only the third governor in the United States, to be recalled. He would join California Gov. Gray Davis and North Dakota Gov. Lynn Frazier. 
 
 "This was the greatest petition campaign in American history for a reason: Scott Walker's radical overreach and abuse of power," said Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "Tomorrow will be a day for sober reflection on the work done and the great work left to do to restore Wisconsin's values." 
 
 But Walker campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said the governor was expecting this and is ready to defend his record. 
 
 "We have long said that we anticipated the election process would move forward," she said. "Gov. Walker looks forward to contrasting his record of laying the foundation for a more successful Wisconsin while moving the state forward against the Democrats' failed policies." 
 
 The board has already found enough valid signatures were collected on petitions that aim to recall four Republican state senators: Scott Fitzgerald, Van Wanggaard, Terry Moulton, and Pam Galloway. Galloway has resigned from the Senate, citing illnesses in her family. 
 
 The senators' recall elections would be on the same two dates — May 8 and June 5 — as the Walker and Kleefisch recalls. 
 
 Candidates wishing to run have until April 10 to file nomination papers.
– And the state's elections board makes it official: The recall election against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been ordered, the AP reports. Mick E. Mous, Donald L. Duck, and Adolf Hitler have been scratched, but almost all the other 900,000 signatures on a petition to recall Wisconsin's controversial Republican governor have been declared genuine, clearing the way for a June 5 election. At least three Democrats are running to replace Scott Walker, and a primary will be held May 8, reports the Wisconsin State Journal. The state's lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators also face recall. If Democrats succeed in ousting Walker, he will be only the third governor in US history to be recalled. "This was the greatest petition campaign in American history for a reason: Scott Walker's radical overreach and abuse of power," said a Democratic Party spokesman. A Walker campaign spokeswoman says the governor is ready to defend his record. The recall battle has been such a prominent issue in Wisconsin that even Republican activists say they haven't been paying much attention to the state's April 3 primary, AP notes.