BREAKING: Fewer Than 40 Recall Newsom Signatures Rescinded Statewide

UPDATE Below: It appears that only 36 California voters who signed the RecallGavin2020 recall petition have removed their signatures.

Susan Walsh, a senior volunteer with the RecallGavin2020.com campaign contacted every county election office in the state following the June 8th deadline, and asked how many recall petition signers removed their names.

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“I was worried at first that the numbers would be in the thousands,” Walsh told the Globe in an exclusive interview. However, early on in her calls, Walsh noticed the exceedingly low number of rescinded signatures.

To qualify this recall for the ballot, 1,495,709 signatures were required. The recall petition gatherers turned in 2,161,349 signatures. Of those, 1,719,943 were validated by the Secretary of State. This left a cushion of 224,234 extra signatures.

Recall law changed

During the recall of California State Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) in 2017 and 2018, the Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting, passed a law extending the amount of time between the qualification of a recall petition and the actual election, hoping to save Newman. But they were sued by taxpayer advocate groups and lost. “The recall was meant to be a quick remedy,” President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Jon Coupal said at the time. “This is directly contrary to the intent.”

However, that law is on the books now and applies to the current recall election of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. This law has added additional recall procedures and lengthened the time before the actual election will take place after qualifying for the ballot.

California just crossed one of those hurdles: the 30 day period just ended in which the California Secretary of State has to contact petition signers and ask if they understood what they signed and if they want to remove their name from the petition.

And weirdly, several counties refused to provide the numbers. Alameda County, San Bernardino, Merced, Stanislaus, San Diego and Los Angeles Counties did not provide the numbers of rescinded signatures. Merced and Stanislaus Counties claimed that they have until June 22 to turn the report in, despite Walsh telling them that June 8th was the deadline.

Only a few counties said they’d need to get back to Walsh.

Most counties reported zero rescinded signatures:

• Fresno County was the highest with 10 signature removals.
• Ventura County had 5 signatures rescinded.
• San Francisco had 4 signatures rescinded.
• Sonoma County had 3 signatures rescinded.
• Placer County, Sacramento County, San Joaquin, and San Luis Obispo had 2.
• Orange, Santa Clara, Solano and Tulare Counties had 1 signature rescinded.

The remaining counties reported no signatures rescinded or removed.

Here is the tally:

Walsh said she’d report back to the Globe when the remaining counties finally report. It will be interesting to see what their numbers look like. As we were going to publish, Walsh said Mono County just reported zero signature removals.

Notably, Sen. Josh Newman authored SB 663 in February to allow a voter who has signed an initiative, referendum, or recall petition to remove their name from the petition 45 days after the petition is filed.

The Globe will follow up once every county has reported.

Following the 30-days to remove signatures, the Secretary of State has 10 days to determine if there are still enough signatures to move ahead with the recall election.

After that verification, the Department of Finance provides an estimate of the cost of the recall election to the Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State and Legislative Budget Committee.

The Legislative Budget Committee then has 30 days to review and comment on the cost estimate by the Department of Finance.

Then, the Secretary of State certifies the recall petitions to the Governor and Lt. Governor.

The Lt. Governor then is required to call a recall election between 60 and 80 days after certification of the signatures.

UPDATE: 6/12/21

Trinity County: zero

San Bernardino County: 1

Mariposa County: 1

Riverside County: 2

Imperial County: zero

Los Angeles County: 7

Orange County: 7

Total: 54 total signers of the recall rescinded their signatures, out of 1,719,943 validated by the Secretary of State.