A count of a random sampling of signatures for the recall of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón pushed the endeavor into a new phase July 14 as the county clerk will now need to verify the rest of the submitted signatures.
The LA County Clerk reviewed about 36,000 signatures at random, which is 5 percent of the nearly 716,000 signatures the campaign submitted.
About 28,000 of the reviewed signatures were authenticated. That was higher than the nearly 26,000 threshold that would have automatically invalidated the recall petition.
But it was still lower than the 31,000 needed for the petition to be automatically certified.
Now the county clerk’s office must conduct a count of all signatures by Aug. 17. The recall requires 566,857 signatures to appear on the November ballot.
Recall spokesman Tim Lineberger called the clerk’s random sampling validation “another significant milestone” in the campaign’s effort.
“We remain confident the requisite 566,857 verified signatures to qualify the recall were submitted, and that once the recall qualifies, Gascón will be removed from office in a landslide,” Lineberger told The Epoch Times. “As we assumed, this was always going to be close, but we are right in line with where we need to be to qualify. Ultimately, we will exhaust every legal and statutory option available to demonstrate as much if necessary.”
Gascón was elected in December 2020 on a promise to implement “bold” progressive change to LA’s criminal justice system. He was previously the DA in San Francisco and was replaced by Chesa Boudin, who was just recalled by voters during the June primaries.
Several high-profile law enforcement unions, including the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League also support the recall.
More than 30 cities in Los Angeles County, including Torrance, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, and Beverly Hills, support the recall, with more than a dozen passing votes of no confidence against Gascón’s policies.
Gascón has defended his policies and called the recall effort against him an initiative “driven by very conservative, very right-wing forces” during a podcast interview on June 1.
An email was sent to Gascón’s office.
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