The Year in Recalls -- 77 officials ousted, 31 survive, 16 resign; 385+ recalls attempted

Wrapping up the 14th year of recall compilations here at the blog with our year-end article in Plurbius News. Here's Ballotpedia's data, and they (unsurprisingly) have similar numbers.

The totals are very similar to last year -- 108 recall votes, 77 ousters, 31 survived and 16 resignations + one death of Quincy Murphy in Flint, Michigan.

The big change is that there was a drop in recalls attempted from 428 to 385. I generally don't love the recalls attempted stat, but there definitely was a drop in attempts, though clearly something that does not show up in the end results.

One possible reasons for the drop off is our traditional caveat of drop-off in newspaper coverage. Another maybe that perhaps with a higher percentage of officials facing the end of a term in a presidential year, there may be less of an interest in a recall effort -- though I don't believe that the numbers over time show that.

Last year saw 89 recall elections, with 52 officials removed and 37 survived. There were 18 resignations. 

For some comparisons, in 2022, there were 89 recall elections (52 officials removed, 37 survived, 18 resignations -- 415 attempts). In 2020 and 2021, voter anger over pandemic-era lockdowns inspired far more recall efforts, but far fewer actual recall results. In 2021 alone, voters attempted to recall officials more than 600 times. In 2020, just 66 officials were forced into recall elections, and 14 more resigned before they had to face a recall. The same number, 66, faced recalls in 2021, and another 17 resigned early. 

In 2019, 87 officials faced a recall vote (37 removals, 16 resignations, 34 survived). In 2018 (which I never published) saw 150 recalls make the ballot or lead to a resignation, with 85 removals, 28 resignations and 37 survivals. In 2017, we had 102 recalls, 2016, we have 119 recalls. In 2015, there were 109; 2014 (which, I never actually wrote up), 126 recalls. In 2013, we had 107 recalls. 2012 we had 166, and a 2011 we had 151 (the numbers do not always exactly match up to the links – I checked back and found additional recalls and removed a few).