Louisiana: New Orleans does not disappoint in a wild finish to recall, with petitioners not getting the signatures

The recall effort against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell seems to have ended in a wild finish today, as petitioners were found not to have come close to handing in enough signatures, with an extremely large signature failure rate. In the end (after refusing to state a number before) petitioners handed in 67,046 signatures. However, they only had 27243 signatures verified, for an eye-watering 59% failure rate. Outside of the Cleveland Mayor recall in 2015 (where a technical deficiency led to a 98% rejection rate), this is the highest failure rate of a significant recall in the US that I can think of. 

What seems to have happened, as previously discussed, petitioners handed in the signatures in two batches. The first was 34625 (+7 addiitons), of which 7411 were rejected. The second batch came during the odd five day grace period to add or strike your name. There, 32,421 signatures were handed in. Only 24 were certified and 32,397 were tossed out (4783 for duplication, the rest for other reasons). 

Based on the law, the signatures handed in during the five overtime had to be collected during that time period. They were not -- which leads to real questions as to why there was a delay in handing them in on time. Was it a blown move or could this have been intentional, -- preuming that they didn't have enough signatures to make the ballot, this would give it the sheen of a technical rejection. It's not clear.

So far, the petitioners are talking about appealing (and also blaming the Times-Picatyune/ Advocate for suing to check the signatures, an odd complaint). It all strikes the same tone as the failed Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon recall effort. Note that the recall petitioners apparently spent $1.2 million in the effort (with close to $500K from one notable GOP donor).

Presumably, the lawsuit that was filed against the Secretary of State's decision to not actually remove anyone from the rolls, but(phantom-runner style) strike 25000 names just for the purpose of the recall, thereby lowering the number of signatures needed by 5000. is no longer needed and will be moot. Cantrell has also filed over the Judge's signing the recall petition herself (though that seems less like to succeed).