MADISON — Lori Compas said she is ahead of schedule in her campaign to recall Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.

As of Monday morning, Compas said she and her fellow petitioners had collected 5,350 of the 16,742 signatures that would, if validated, help trigger a recall election for the Juneau Republican.

But if Republicans win in the state legal system, Compas’ efforts largely may be moot.

A group of Wisconsinites has filed two lawsuits, one with the state Supreme Court and one this week in Waukesha County, that seek to use newly redrawn legislative district maps for any recall efforts in 2012.

If the courts agree that the new maps should be in effect, that likely would benefit the GOP, which, as majority party, had the right to draw up the new congressional and legislative district boundaries. The new maps are required following every national census, to reflect population shifts.

The disputed boundary changes, passed earlier this year on partisan lines, specified that the new maps would be rolled out for the November general election. With recalls a distinct possibility, the GOP is pushing to move up the implementation of the new maps.

Compas is collecting recall signatures, using the old maps in place for the past decade and, for now, still in effect. If the new maps are used, many or all of those signatures may be invalidated, because some of the petition signers would no longer reside in Fitzgerald’s district.

Only the signatures of registered voters living within an elected official’s district are valid on recall petitions.

Those seeking to recall three other Republican senators — Van Wanggaard of Racine, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Pam Galloway of Wausau — face the same issue.

“As soon as I saw the news of the lawsuit, it certainly flickered across my mind, but I can’t be concerned about that,” Compas said.

Fitzgerald’s spokesman Andrew Welhouse said the senator has nothing to do with the lawsuits.

But Welhouse said the new districts more accurately reflect the population changes, fulfilling the one-person, one-vote tenet of democracy. More so, the state constitution demands it, stating that “all senate districts, and all assembly districts, are as equal in the number of inhabitants as practicable.”

The Government Accountability Board, or GAB, which oversees the state’s elections, has cited current law as the basis for telling recall petition circulators that the old maps will be in effect for 2012 recall elections. A date for those elections will be set after the GAB validates the petition signatures.

Wording in the redistricting act, passed by Republicans in July, said the law “first applies, with respect to special or recall elections, to offices filled or contested concurrently with the 2012 general election.”

The general election, according to the GAB, is defined as “the election held in even-numbered years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November conducted to elect, among other offices, state senators and representatives to the assembly.”

Supporters of using the old maps question the constitutionality of denying people who voted for a senator in a regular election the right to vote in his recall, as some would if the new maps go into effect before spring recall elections.

In October, state Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, introduced a bill that would put the new boundaries into effect immediately. She said the “intersection of redistricting and possible recall elections have created a quagmire of confusion for voters, election officials and lawmakers.”

“The idea (that) lawmakers are responsible for two different districts at the same time is mind-boggling,” she said. ”The prospect of holding elections in potentially unconstitutional districts is an affront to the one-person, one-vote principle and of great concern to me.”

Lazich’s effort has stalled, though, because moderate Republican Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, said he would not support the measure.

With a 17-16 majority in the Senate, Republicans need the vote of every member of their caucus to pass partisan legislation.

Speaking to Wisconsin Reporter in October, Schultz said Republicans passed the original redistricting bill indicating that the maps would take effect in November 2012.

“And I just see no reason to change the rules,” he said.

Compas said she is going ahead as planned in her efforts to recall Fitzgerald.

The GAB “assured me that the current district (lines) would be in place for the duration of the recall, and that’s what I’m going on,” she said.

The Supreme Court has set a deadline of next Wednesday for lawyers to file arguments regarding whether a three-judge panel should be appointed to oversee the case filed with that body.

No action has been scheduled in the Waukesha County lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday, said plaintiffs’ attorney Joe Olson.

But under Wisconsin statute, the county has up to five days to notify the state Supreme Court, which then “shall appoint a panel consisting of (three) circuit court judges to hear the matter.”

A group of Democrats also has filed a federal lawsuit in Milwaukee, challenging the constitutionality of the new redistricting plan.

That trial is scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 21, according to GAB attorney Mike Haas.

The last year a redistricting plan was approved without intervention from the courts was 1983.