Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. (Photo: georgegascon.org)
Gascón Recall Effort Fails as LA Registrar Recorder Denies 200K Signatures
‘If this was my recall team, I’d definitely look into it – Something is off’
By Evan Symon, August 16, 2022 2:08 am
Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan announced on Monday that the recall petition of LA District Attorney George Gascon failed to reach the needed number of signatures, only garnering 520,050 of the needed 566,867 needed to be on the November 2022 ballot.
In July, LA Mayoral candidate and current Rep. Karen Bass said “My focus is going to be on the mayor’s race…I’m not going to be focused on the recall,” LAMag.com reported, and said she “then went on to characterize the chances the recall will qualify for the ballot as ‘doubtful.’”
When the second recall attempt against Gascon kicked off in January following the failed 2021 attempt, the number of signatures quickly grew. By June, so many had been collected that the safety goal was being reached and criminals in the County were so worried of it succeeding that many began asking for more plea deals ahead of such a recall being on the ballot. Around 716,000 were turned in by the early July deadline, with number of signatures widely being seen as enough, as previous petitions, such as the Gavin Newsom recall campaign in 2021, had only a 20% rejection rate.
“I wouldn’t say it’s in the bag or we’ll be complacent, but as far as public opinion is concerned, George Gascon is toast,” said Recall DA George Gascon Tim Lineberger spokesman last month.
However, on Monday, 195,783 signatures of the 715,833 turned in were invalidated, causing the recall petition to not advance.
“Based on the examination and verification, which conducted in compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements of the California Government Code, Elections Code, and Code of Regulations, 520,050 signatures were found to be valid and 195,783 were found to be invalid,” said Logan on Monday. “Therefore, the petition has failed to meet the sufficiency requirements and no further action shall be taken on the petition.”
Of the nearly 200,000 invalidated signatures, 88,000 were not registered, 43,593 were duplicates, 32,187 were a different address, 9,490 were mismatched signatures, 7,344 were canceled, 5,374 were out of county addresses, with 9,300 being uncounted under the ‘other’ category.
Those against the recall attempt celebrated on Monday, with a Gascon campaign spokesperson saying “We are obviously glad to move forward from this attempted political power grab, but we also understand that there is far more work that needs to be done. And we remain strongly committed to that work. The DA’s primary focus is and has always been keeping us safe and creating a more equitable justice system for all. Today’s announcement does not change that.”
Gascon himself also gave a brief tweet, echoing similar sentiments.
“Grateful to move forward from this attempted political power grab-rest assured LA County, the work hasn’t stopped,” tweeted Gascon. “My primary focus has been & will always be keeping us safe & creating a more equitable justice system for all. I remain strongly committed to that work & to you.”
Grateful to move forward from this attempted political power grab-rest assured LA County, the work hasn’t stopped.
My primary focus has been & will always be keeping us safe & creating a more equitable justice system for all.
I remain strongly committed to that work & to you.
— George Gascón (@GeorgeGascon) August 15, 2022
Over 27% of all signatures invalidated
Proponents of the recall, who have charged Gascon with causing worsening crime throughout the County due to being lax on crime, spoke out against the results of the registrar on Monday, noting that the final figures wildly varied against validation projections and the recall petition ultimately succeeding,
“Things aren’t really adding up here,” explained former lobbyist Harry Schultz in a Globe interview on Monday. “Previous recall petitions had only around 20% invalidations. In LA, it was over 27%. Something is wrong there. Signature gatherers always ask if they live in the county, are registered, if they have lived at that address for a certain period of time, and so on. 27%, that’s almost at the level where you have to be trying to find people who aren’t registered yet have them sign anyway. It’s like a 30-game losing streak in pro sports. You’d have to be trying at that point to lose.”
“If this was my recall team, I’d definitely look into it. Something is off.”
Recall DA George Gascon confirmed on Thursday that they would be reviewing the signatures to check for disenfranchisement.
“While the initial results are surprising and disappointing, the Recall Committee intends to exercise its full statutory and legal authority to review the rejected signatures and verification process that took place and will ultimately seek to ensure no voter was disenfranchised,” the Recall DA George Gascon campaign said Monday. “Nonetheless, according to the Registrar-Recorder, over half a million residents placed valid signatures on a petition to initiate the recall of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. To deprive them of the opportunity to restore public safety in their own communities is heartbreaking. And to interpret this in any other way other than a wholesale rejection of Gascon’s dangerous polices would be disingenuous, or naive at best. The over half a million signatures are in addition to 37 cities voting no confidence in the District Attorney, and over 98% of Gascon’s own prosecutors supporting the recall. The removal of George Gascon from office has never been a matter of if, but when. The citizens of Los Angeles cannot afford another two years of Gascon unleashing havoc on their streets – people’s lives are at stake.”
Those who backed the recall have three weeks to go over the Registrar’s report as well as use their findings for a possible lawsuit or other action.
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File a lawsuit to have the rejected signature list audited…
If only the same level of scrutiny were applied in “normal” elections…
I concur, CriticalDfence9. Remember all of the election fraud in vote counting? Where did most of this happen? In Los Angeles. This wreaks of fraud on the LA Registrar side.
Observers were BANNED by the L.A. County Registrar from the petition verification process.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg of dirty tricks
Susan Shelley, columnist and editorial writer with the Southern California News Group, pointed out recently that the L.A. County Registrar requires a percentage of valid signatures from ALL registered voters in L.A. County, even though the county voter rolls are gluttonously bloated and have been PROVEN to be so. The county has been court-ordered to trim the bloated voter rolls but they have not so far done it.
L.A. County makes up its own rules, which by the way differ from the state’s recall requirements of a percentage of registered voters who voted in the last election. (Although if one assumes cheating that would be a bloated number, too.)
This is another avenue for a law suit.
Earlier this year, Gascon refused to appear for a gathering of LA County assistant district attorneys, presumably because they were concerned about the justice system in the county. Afterward, a relatively high number of that group — his employees — were polled about whether they thought he should be recalled. The result: 97.9 percent were for recall. Any other leader in the circumstances would have resigned the next morning.
No surprise. While Gascon is terrible, it is not top priority to have a recall of Gascon. Ferrer and the County Board of Supervisors should be fired for handling of Covid and imposing restrictions.
Gascon is well known that he’s heard through California so there’s going to be some angry voters who signed the petition from outside Los Angeles county, so that probably explains why over a quarter of the signatures were invalid.
Yes, Art, what you’ve noted about so-called signers outside of L.A. County is indeed an unfounded rumor that seems to be going around. But the recall campaign reportedly weeded out illegible signatures before turning in the petitions. Kinda sounds to me like that rumor, as well as others, might be coming from those who don’t want the recall to qualify, you know?
For starters, I’ll repeat a shrewd comment I saw elsewhere this morning:
“How do they [the L.A. County Registrar] verify 195k of the petitioners are invalid but it is impossible to to go through the voter rolls and eliminate illegitimate and illegal voters?”
The recall campaign went through and weeded out ineligible petition signers THEMSELVES, before turning in the 715,833 signatures (WELL over the number required) to the L.A. County Registrar.
There is also marxist congresswoman and L.A. City mayoral candidate Karen Bass’ telling statement in an early July interview, picked up at the time by Red State.
https://redstate.com/levon/2022/07/10/los-angeles-mayoral-candidate-karen-bass-continues-to-support-da-george-gascon-n592582
Excerpt:
“Then [Karen Bass] added something very interesting that voters should question.
‘But the recall has to pass the most significant hurdle. Will it even qualify? We don’t know if that is going to be the case, and I will tell you that it is doubtful from what I’ve talked to people, it is doubtful that the recall will qualify. But if it does, my focus is going to be on the Mayor’s race.”’
Kinda sounds like Karen was tipped off early to how the recall would not qualify, ya think?
There are so many more problems with this —– just on their face, without diving into the rejects and the funky reject numbers, that I’ll refrain from commenting about now. Law suits will come if this is not resolved first by the recall campaign’s investigation, but of course that means a huge delay and the recall likely won’t be on the Nov ballot. Meanwhile the streets of L.A. County continue to run with blood from this HORRENDOUS D.A. George Gascon.
Meanwhile the recall campaign has 21 days to examine the rejects.
We’ll see what happens with that, the first step in challenging this.
Thank you for the John Phillips link. I look forward to listening and learning.
🙂 Cali Girl. Good “universal” info in it to understand and visualize the (incompetence and) cheating, not just for L.A. County but for everywhere.
What a crock of BS! This is a rigged game which is what you always have when Dems are running the voting registrar.
No kidding, John. This particular registrar (Dean Logan) comes to L.A. with (as John Fund called it) “a long rap sheet” of screw-ups, funny business, and baggage.
https://www.kabc.com/2022/08/15/gascon-recall-registrar-says-not-enough-valid-petitions-surprised-read-the-release-for-yourself/
OH! Big Surprise here! Not………..This cocksure S.O.B. started clearing death row last week! So he already knew the fix was in!
Los Angeles county is larger than S.F. and S.F. is more aware of its politic, but L.A. has been corrupt for years why do you think the pols there act with IMPUNITY!? They know they can’t be removed.
Ric has a big job ahead, so does EIPCa.
Good to explore the high number of “duplicate signatures”. I suspect LA government employee unions just might have tried to sabotage the signature gathering process.
You could very well be right about union sabotage of some kind, Jaye. Sigh.
Highly recommended audio on this subject:
“John Fund on the John Phillips Show KABC 790 about Miserable Failure L.A. County and the Gascon Recall” (Begin at the 2:48 marker. About 20 minutes long.)
https://omny.fm/shows/the-drive-home-with-jillian-barberie-and-john-ph-1/john-fund-3
Soros won’t let a second DA get booted. We have so much corruption now its nearly at every level of govt. Karen Bass is also a SOROS product, so am sure outcome predetermined
Exactly! Karen Bass was officially endorsed by Hillary Clinton recently and yes they are supported by the billionaire, marxist George Soros et al.
Wait for it, Obama I am sure will throw his support in very soon.
Again, follow the money!
Well, LA will get what it wants in the form of higher body counts and lots more crime. We all know that “equitable justice system” really means let criminals off the hook and screw over their victims. I will continue to avoid LA like the plague that it is (just as I do San Francisco). Only concern I have is that the criminals they let loose will come into neighboring communities such as mine and terrorize us as well.
Things that make you go hmmmmnnn….
Obviously, the system protects itself. Remember when the Secretary of State tried to disqualify Larry Elder?
I would look to the signature gathering companies used by the recall group. In Michigan, two Republican candidates were disqualified due to invalid signatures and claimed fraud by the owner of that business who supposedly was a Democrat donor.
Interesting. Thanks for this, Rod, as well as the reminder about the SOS attempt to disqualify Elder. Had almost forgotten about that!