After a second effort to recall Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón failed in August, the campaign behind it is filing an injunction against the county registrar, claiming its signature verification process was “seriously flawed, resulting in substantial errors, [and] the wrongful invalidation of many valid signatures,” according to a statement released Oct. 10.
The recallers said their volunteer attorneys have been reviewing the invalidated signatures since Sept. 6 and found 39 percent warrant “clear, obvious, and legitimate challenges.”
“These extremely disturbing findings necessitate a complete and timely review of all invalidated signatures,” the campaign said. “This review is currently being obstructed by the Registrar’s office.”
Recallers said some signatures the registrar determined were “non-matching” show “substantial similarities” to those on file. Other examples of signature discrepancies were also found, they said.
According to the recall group, the registrar “placed arbitrary and capricious limitations” on validating the signatures—including cutting back on “review hours, workstations, number of reviewers, access to information necessary to determine the legitimacy of a signature invalidation, and more.”
The campaign is seeking a legal remedy as early as next week, which would prevent the registrar’s office from imposing certain restrictions on the recall group that would interfere with its review process.
Recallers also said they’d be investigating other substantial issues in the recall process, such as the “inaccurate and inflated” number of signatures required due to “bloated” voter rolls.
Nearly 90,000 were not registered voters, and roughly 45,000 were duplicates, according to the registrar, leaving 520,050 eligible signatures—when 566,857 were needed to trigger a recall election.
According to Logan, the county’s verification process followed all California laws and requirements.
Under the registrar’s current rules, the group said, it would take more than a year for the office to conduct a complete review of the invalidated signatures, which was why the group is conducting its own review.
Gascón, who was elected in December 2020, has come under fire for pushing what critics consider “soft-on-crime” criminal justice reform policies, such as eliminating cash bail, eliminating the death penalty, and refusing to charge juveniles as adults.
He was previously the DA in San Francisco and was replaced by Chesa Boudin, who implemented similar reform policies and was recalled by voters during the June primaries.
Gascón released a statement in August in response to the most recent failed recall.
“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. … The DA’s primary focus is and has always been keeping us safe and creating a more equitable justice system for all,” he said.
The county registrar told The Epoch Times Oct. 12 it will not comment on the matter until the injunction is filed.
