Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
OAN NEWSROOM
UPDATED 3:21 PM PT – Sunday, July 10, 2022
The Los Angeles Department of Elections determined the petition to recall District Attorney George Gascon has enough signatures to trigger an election. In a press release Saturday, the voter registrar stated the raw count of recall petition signatures was 715,833. A total of 567,000 valid signatures are needed to trigger a recall which the department will verify by a random sample of the signatures turned in by petition organizers.
“As authorized in the California Elections Code, the RR/CC will use the random sampling technique for the verification of petition signatures,” said Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan. “The random sample is 5 percent of the total number of signatures submitted. Based on the random sampling results the petition will be certified as sufficient, require verification of all signatures submitted, or certified as insufficient. If the petition meets the sufficiency requirement the RR/CC must certify sufficiency to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors at its next regular meeting.”
The earliest a recall election could take place is November 8 in a general election that includes runoff races for Los Angeles city mayor and county sheriff, as well as congressional midterms. If it’s put to a vote more than 50 percent of voters would have to vote to oust Gascon.
“The concept that these changes were made solely because of the outside pressures, I know it may appear to be that way, but I can tell you it’s much more nuanced than that,” voiced Gascon. “Frankly, regardless of where the recall goes, there will be additional adjustments.”
BREAKING: Los Angeles Voter Registrar (Dept of Elections) has determined the raw count of recall petition signatures to be 715,833 , way above the threshold for recall. The Dept has til Aug 17 to now validate the signature sample to conclude that the recall tally has succeeded. pic.twitter.com/W3hwH7W3fC
— Richie Greenberg (@richieSF2016) July 9, 2022
Growing frustrations with Gascon have centered on his all or nothing policy stances. On his first day in office, Gascon barred prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, trying juveniles as adults and filing sentencing enhancements. This increased the amount of prison time a defendant will face in certain situations, including if they use a gun in the commission of a crime.
An attempt to recall Gascon failed last year when the recall campaign was unable to garner enough signatures on a petition to put the issue to voters.