Governing and the Guardian looks at who may be behind the funding of the recall effort
Could Kimberly Guilfoyle, Gavin Newsom's ex-wife (and Donald Trump Jr.'s current girlfriend), be looking to run against him in the recall? (Spoiler alert! No)
'Donald Trump Jr. sniped at ex-San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and possible recall candidate
A Reason article on the recall as a check on power
Here's a Daily Signal article looking at 4 things to know about recalling governors
The recall effort against Tucson Mayor Regina Romero (D) failed, with the clerk quickly invalidating 1500 signatures. Petitioners handed in about 26000. The needed about 24,700. The recall was over her moves to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Recall supporters previously complained about closing churches and restaurants as well as mask mandates to stop the spread of the virus. A former Republican Congressional candidate Joseph Morgan was one of the leaders of the recall effort.
Six Red Wing City Council members, Dean Hove, Andy Klitzke, Evan Brown, Becky Norton, Erin Buss and Laurel Stinson, are facing a recall effort following the firing of the Police Chief (the vote was 6-1).
Minnesota is a malfeasance standard state, so petitioners will need to show a statutorily specific reason for the recall. There has been only one recall that I've seen in Minnesota since 2011m and it is likely there hasn't been another one since the state-wide adoption of a recall law in 1996.
Proposition Zero, a nonpartisan group, is calling for direct democracy in Burlington, including the adoption of a recall provision.
The article notes that 20 cities and towns in Vermont allow for recalls, and that a previous administration also backed a recall law.
State Representative Mark Finchem (R) is facing a recall effort over his alleged support for the Capitol Hill riots on January 6th and the attempted overthrow of the presidential election. The effort seems to be facing questions after the Chair of the Casa Grande Democrats, Ralph Atchue stepped back from the effort to let professionals run it. Representative Athena Salman (D) has also introduced a resolution to expel Finchem.
Petitioners would need 24,774 signatures in 120 days.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is facing a recall effort from victims' rights groups and others over his criminal justice reform plans, including freeing bail; ending cash bail and other efforts.
The San Francisco District Attorney is also facing a recall effort. Petitioners need about 580,000 signatures to get the recall on the ballot.
Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal is facing a recall effort over claims that he has been ineffective and has used the department for personal gain.
The recall effort appears to include the former Sheriff, who was accused by Bernal of mismanaging and misappropriating union money (which was rejected by the state DOJ). and a campaign consultant, Christian Schneider, who helped run Bernal's 2014 election, than ran the race to replace Bernal in 2018 (which failed). There's a lot more in the article.
Petitioners would need about 18000 signatures to get on the ballot.
Lake County Coroner Shannon Kent is facing a recall effort after his (and his wife's) arrest after leaving a body in funeral facility. The charge is tampering with a deceased human body. Kent is also facing charges for violating bail bond conditions from a 2019 arrest for perjury and misconduct for enlisting his wife as deputy coroner. The state suspended their funeral homes in October 2020 over the cremation of a stillborn baby. Petitioners need 690 signatures in 60 days.
Snohomish County Auditor Garth Fell rejected a petition to give recall proponents against Snohmish County Sheriff Adam Fortney 90 more days to gather signatures. Fell noted that he doesn't have the power and it is up to the Governor or courts. The Fortney recall was approved by the Washington State Supreme Court.
The recall was over his Facebook comments against the Governor's coronavirus pandemic restrictions, as well as hiring officers previously fired for misconduct. (there's also a recall effort over his handling of the jails during the pandemic). Fortney claimed that he "will not be enforcing an order preventing religious freedoms or constitutional rights." Petitioners had 180 days to gather 44,494 signatures.
The 6-3 Supreme Court vote accepted three of four charges, tossing out one that he failed to investigate the use of force by an officer. The three members who dissented upheld the recall effort over hiring officers for misconduct. They dissented over whether Fortney could face a recall over inciting people to ignore pandemic restrictions in his Facebook comments.
Plummer Mayor Bill Weems is facing a recall vote on March 9. The article is locked off, so we'll have to wait to find out what happened, but this state investigation may have something to do with it.
Petitions have been taken out against Ventura Supervisor Linda Parks over her vote to sue 10 businesses with repeated violations of pandemic restrictions. Three other Supervisors, Matt LaVere, Kelly Long and Carmen Ramirez, who all voted in favor of the suit are also being threatened with recalls. All three were recently elected, so they are still in the 90 day grace period.
Petitioners need 11,067 signatures. Parks is in her fifth term, and is term limited after 2022. A sepcial election is estimated to cost about $500,000.
Interesting development here, as the recall petitioners in the California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) recall are said to be soliciting signatures using direct mail. I'm not actually sure what that means. One critical part of the recall law is that the signatures must be witnessed by a circulator. Since this is part of an actual plan, I'm assuming that the recall petitioners and their lawyers have worked a way to do this without having the signatures tossed out in court.
This has been an issue in recalls elsewhere. The recall effort against the Governor of Alaska has also tried the mail-in route, to seemingly limited success. There was recent talk about a recall in New Jersey that would be signed online, though that seems based on an incorrect reading of the law.
As a comparison, the UK's new recall law requires petitioners to sign at one of 10 signing stations.
For Initiatives and Referendums, the National Conference of State Legislatures website claims that Oregon has found a way around witnessing for I&R, (but recalls require a direct witness, according to the Secretary of State's website). The NCSL also notes that "Florida law specifically permits the signing of petitions outside the presence of a circulator." Florida does not have a statewide recall law.
Update: Final signatures have been counted and Craig Wade has lost, 91-88.
Woodmere Village Council seemingly saw a split decision, with Council President Jennifer Mitchell Earley (93-80) and members Lisa Brockwell (90-83) and Glenda Todd Miller (89-85) were kicked out, and council member Craig Wade (85-87) survived the recall vote. However, there are still 13 ballots that could be received by the board by March 5.
Replacements will be named by the remaining council. If they can't make a decision, the mayor chooses.
The recall was over seemingly over the lack of a sidewalk on a road and an out of date website. Perhaps most interesting is a fight over chickens -- one person bought chicks for his children and they kept escaping. The council allegedly took too long in give a special use permit to construct a structure to hold the chicks, so they gave them away. The recall seems to also be about new residents versus old ones in a 900 person village, as well as a battle between the Council President and Mayor.
But as we’ve seen so often with recalls (and petitions in general), signatures will be tossed out. The reasons are usually mundane, which is what happens when you’re collecting signatures on the street and frequently paying people to collect. The problems range from the signers not being registered to signing more than once to living out of district or state or (in rarer instances) using fake names. While most recall attempts fail because petitioners do not hand in any signatures, over the last nine years (2012-2020) I count at least 129 recall attempts throughout the country in which petitioners handed in enough unverified signatures, but the rejection rate resulted in the recall failing to get on the ballot. 32 of these rejections happened in California. So while not an everyday occurrence, signature failures are certainly something to consider.
Because of this potential for signature failure, the petitioners have made it clear that they are shooting for a significant cushion for the recall effort. They are looking to collect 2 million signatures, which would put them 25 percent over the minimum. Which leads to the natural question – is that enough? Currently, petitioners seem to be getting verification at an 80-83 percent clip, which would work. They would need a little over 1.8 million at that rejection rate. But a look at other recalls and ballot measures may get them a little nervous.
In the past, I've seen articles suggesting that a general rule of thumb is a 10-15 percent failure rate, though I'm not sure where that is from (and the article links are now dead). We actually see a 10 percent number referenced in the law – you just have to scroll down in the Code. State level recalls require all the signatures to be verified. But local recalls use a very different law.
If there are more than 500 signatures submitted for the recall, the clerks can use a random sampling verification technique (take sampling/determine the number of valid/extrapolate to the rest). Using this procedure, if valid signatures top 110 percent of the minimum number, the recall qualifies and moves to the ballot. (If it is between 90-110 percent, they verify each one. If it is below 90 percent, it fails).
But the 10 percent total is clearly too low. So let's look at what we've seen in California and elsewhere:
Looking at our closest comparison in California, the 2003 Gray Davis gubernatorial recall, the failure rate was just under 18%. That's pretty much where the Newsom effort is now.
Since then, there have been two state level recalls, both against state Senators. In both cases, we saw a significantly worse result for petitioners, even though the recalls got to the ballot. In 2018, the failure rate for the State Senator Josh Newman recall topped 25 percent (73.66 percent were validated).
The 2008 recall effort against State Senator Jeff Denham, saw a 41.5 failure rate (58.58 percent were validated). This verification was under the random sampling technique (the law was changed in 2018 to remove state level recalls, at least partially to slow the Newman recall effort).
There is another recent recall effort that is also worth considering. In 2018, Santa Clara JudgeAaron Persky faced a recall, the first against a judge in California since 1932 (and the first in the US since 1982). The judicial district was much larger than a regular state senate one. Petitioners needed 58,634 signatures to get on the ballot. Using the random sampling rules, the registrar found that 3389 of 4727 signatures were valid. Since the petitioners handed in 94,539, this was more than enough to get on the ballot. But the failure rate was over 28 percent (the verification rate was 71.6 percent).
Do initiatives tell us anything on this front? Prop 22 was the most high profile initiative in the 2020 race, as petitioners spent more than $6.4 million to get on the ballot. Petitioners needed 623,212 and handed in 987,813 signatures. Once again using the random sampling method, 22.5 percent were found invalid (77.5 percent were verified). A similar result can be seen in a Proposition that required a higher signature total. Prop. 15, which spent nearly $6 million to get on the ballot, was a Constitutional Amendment, which therefore required 997,139, putting us closer to the amount needed for Newsom. Petitioners handed in 1.75 million. Once again, the random sampling method found 25.4 percent invalid (74.60 percent were verified).
In other states, we see a potentially different picture. The last state to hold a gubernatorial recall, Wisconsin had a very different recall law. As Richard Winger of Ballot Access News pointed out, Wisconsin allows the signatures of any eligible voter in the state, not just any registered voter (as in other states). This makes signature rejection much less likely.
The petitioners in the Scott Walker recall garnered an enormous cushion. They handed in 931,053 signatures and they only needed 540,000. At the end of the day, 900,938 were found valid (4,001 duplicates, 26,114 struck out by staff). This is a 3.2% failure rate. For Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch (who appeared on a separate petition), the failure rate was 4%.
The Wisconsin verification also appeared to be different and I am unsure if the fact that Governor Scott Walker effectively conceded the success of the signature gathering portion eliminated the challenges.
In the Senate races in Wisconsin in 2018 we saw some similar numbers. For the
Senator Galloway petitions, there were
21,022 signatures handed in, and the GAB struck out 1,658. Galloway further
challenged 863. The board did not bother looking at the challenged signatures.
So the failure rate on the GAB was 7.8%. If we add in the Galloway protests, it
is close to 12%. The Senator Wanggaard
petitions are a little more complex, as he challenged many more
signatures -- if all of his signature challenges had been approved, it would be
about a 20% failure rate. From the board's review it was less than 3%. For Senator
Moulton, the board threw out 5.7% of the signatures. His
challenges would have pushed it up to about 11%. For Senator
Fitzgerald, the board tossed out 4.1%. With his challenges, it
would be just under 12%.
In the 2011 Wisconsin nine Senate recall races, saw a higher rejection rate, but again it was not clear what was happening. Two petitions posted an alleged 25-27.5% failure rate, there are two (both Democrats) with a 17-18% failure rate, there are three with a 6-8%, and two with effectively zero.
What about the other state legislative recalls of the last decade? We have four to choose from.
In Colorado in 2013, two State Senators lost recall elections. Senate President John Morse (D) saw a 37.5 percent invalidation rate. Colorado historically seemed to have a high invalidation rate, so this wasn’t a surprise. But the second recall was. State Senator Angela Giron (D) saw a 6 percent invalidation rate with only 818 signatures tossed out of 13,466. Petitioners used a new program that allowed them to check the signatures, which explained their accuracy.
In 2011, there were two other recall efforts, with very different verification rates. Arizona Senate Majority Leader Russell Pearce recall saw a 42% failure rate. (Arizona also has a historically high failure rate on the local level). On the other hand, the 2011 Michigan State Rep Paul Scott recall had a 9.4% failure rate.
A last example to consider: The 2011 Miami-Dade Mayoral
recall, which collected over 100,000 signatures, saw a
16% failure rate.
One other factor to consider is claims of deliberate signature fraud. There are a few examples of signing fraud. Japan just saw a crazy version of this, with the lead petitioner hiring people to simply copy the names out of the registration book. In general, widespread signature fraud appears to be both fairly rare and not that difficult to uncover.
That’s not to say that they won’t be made. The claim of deliberate fraud can certainly ignite a party’s base and help muddy the waters against a recall effort. Much as in the last election, the Republicans banged this drum repeatedly in the Scott Walker recall campaign, where they claimed that a huge proportion of the signatures would be fake – the so-called Mickey Mouse signature. However, elections officials claimed to have found only 5 fake names in the Walker petitions: Adolf Hitler, Mick E. Mous, Donald L. Duck, Fungky Van Den Elzen, and I Love Scott Walker Thanks.
The Davis campaign seems to have had a similar argument, though once again it was the Republican side that made the claim. One of the companies that said they led the petition gathering efforts claimed that Davis forces ran a "blocking" campaign by hiring all the good signature gathering companies. They also intimate that Democrats were planning on submitting deliberately false signatures, though that seems unlikely (and crazy -- more likely than not, if the verification process missed a fake signature, it would have been included in the count).
One last issue that may impact the signature race is the signature removal provision. California now gives Newsom 30 business days to fight fire with fire and collect signatures from signers of the petition asking to have their names removed. This law was adopted during the Newman recall and did not work for him, but it did help out a Newport Beach Councilman. Nevada also saw uses of a similar provision. It may be a long shot, but if the numbers are close, a signature removal effort could make all the difference.
What does this mean for the Newsom recall? It is not clear. The petitioners clearly are feeling quite confident. This could be due to a belief that exhibiting confidence will get more people to sign. Or it could be that they feel they have a better vetting method, so they are removing more of the obvious failed signatures before handing them in. They may also feel that they have better training of signature gatherers, which would likely improve the signature verification rate.
On the opposite side of the coin, it could be that the strong performance so far was the relatively low hanging fruit of the recall effort, and the last group needed to get over the hump will see a higher failure rate. One of the advantages that the Davis petitioners had was that turnout in the 2002 election was so low, getting on the ballot required an historically small percentage of signatures. That is not the case here, and the last group of signers may be harder to get.
The track record does suggest that a 25 percent cushion can be enough, but it may make for a closer result than petitioners would like.
Petitioners have had 668,000 signatures verified so far, this article claims that the verification rate is usually 40 to 60 percent, which (as we shall see tomorrow) is incredibly wrong -- I do not think I've ever seen a recall get on the ballot with a 60 percent failure rate. This piece suggests an 83.7% rate, similar to the Gray Davis recall.
Some discussion here on delaying the recall to the next election date.
Here's an NPR interview.
Petitioners in the recall effort against Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy (R) claim they have 56,476 signatures (79 percent) of the 71,252 valids needed to get on the ballot.
The Supreme Court has already upheld the recall and said that it meets the state's malfeasance standard. There is no time limit for the collection of the signatures.
If Dunleavy were recalled, there would not be a replacement race. Instead, the Lieutenant Governor (a Republican) would automatically be moved up to Governor.
Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill (R) and Councilmembers Matt Lotano, Kevin Geoghean, Josh Kopp and Maria Maruca are the subject of a robocall asking if the voter would support a recall over three separate issues. Hill has been facing complaints over a proposed rule to reduce the 10-acre minimum zoning requirement for houses of worship. There is also complaints over new apartments and a property tax increase.
The article claims that New Jersey is allowing digital signatures for recalls during the pandemic, though I don't believe this is a correct reading of the Executive Order. According to the article, petitioners need 15,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
Saco City Councilor Alan Minthorn is facing recall effort over claims that he didn't take a strong enough stand against an apartment complex and zoning issues. Both Minthorn and the petitioners oppose the complex, but there are complaints about other procedural issues during the stages leading up to the project. Petitioners would need 347 signatures (15 percent of registered voters). Petitioners must sign in City Hall itself (similar to the UK version of the recall) and have only 20 days for collecting.
