102 Recalls in 2017 -- 39 removed, 31 resigned, 29 survived; At least 395 attempts

Many months late, here's the Recall Elections Blog's annual end of the year stats: In 2017, we had 102 recalls, though some asterisk here. 39 officials were removed in the vote, 31 resigned. 29 officials survived a recall vote. Additionally, in one recall, the official did not contest the recall and instead ran for Mayor (and won). In two other recalls, no one ran against the official so the recalls were cancelled.

I count 395 recall efforts over all. The good folks at Ballotpedia have slightly different numbers, but they are roughly similar.

This year saw a drop from 2016, when there were 120 recalls. This is actually the least recalls in a year since I’ve been tracing. In 2015, there were 108; 2014 (which, I never actually wrote up), 126 recalls. In 2013, we had 107 recalls. 2012 we had 168, and a 2011 we had 151. It does seem that there is a drop in off-year elections. I imagine this is partly because of the waiting period that most jurisdictions have right after an official starts in office.

We also saw officials kill recalls in the administrative setting – Hearne, Texas is one very clear example. We also missed a rare Recall Trial in Norfolk,Virginia, where the official was convicted and removed before the recall trial was started. And in Nevada, the Supreme Court killed any opportunity for a recall of judges.

For the fourth straight year, no state official has faced a recall (though in 2015, the Oregon Governor resigned in the face of recall threats). This is a return to the historic norm, though one that is going to end with the recall of a California State Senator Josh Newman (as well as possible ones in Nevada).

·                     22 states had recall elections take place 

·                     The big recall states were Colorado (18) and Oregon (11) – Michigan and California are surprisingly not on the list 

·                     I have not included recalls in Native American territory nor do I include HOAs or Senior Living Communities.