The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk announced on Saturday that they’ve completed the first step in reviewing petitions submitted for the recall of District Attorney George Gascón.
This is the first time the county has ever publicly acknowledged the campaign to recall Gascón, as the previous attempt last year failed to garner enough signatures for submission.
Although getting the potential referendum on the ballot only required 566,857 signatures, the county registrar’s press release said 715,833 signatures were determined in their raw count. Supporters of the recall collected additional signatures above the minimum required to allow for any signatures that may be invalidated.
It will most likely take weeks to verify all of the signatures, but the registrar’s office must do so before Aug. 17 in accordance with state elections code. To verify the signatures, the registrar’s office will randomly sample 5% of the total signatures submitted.
Based on these results, the petition will either be determined to be sufficient, require that all signatures must be verified, or insufficient.
If the petition is sufficient, the Registrar-Recorder’s office will report it to the county Board of Supervisors at its next regular meeting.
If a recall election is to take place, the earliest it could happen would be in the General Election in November. Otherwise, a special election would be held in either late-December or mid-January.
