Newsom recall effort meets valid signature requirement
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KION) The California Secretary of State's Office says that as of Monday, the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom has met the required number of valid signatures to initiate a recall.
To qualify, a recall attempt needs to gather 1.495 million valid signatures, and according to the Secretary of State's Office, this attempt has 1,626,042 valid signatures.
Now, county election officials will need to verify the validity of any other signatures and report the final verification on April 29. The next phase in the process is a 30-business day period, during which time voters can request county elections officials to remove their names from petitions, and counties will need to report withdrawn signatures within ten business days of the end of the period. After that, the Secretary of State's Office will find out whether the petition still has enough signatures to start a recall election.
If the effort no longer has enough signatures, it will fail, but if it has enough, the Secretary of State will need to notify the Department of Finance, and within 30 days, the department will need to estimate costs with county election officials and the Secretary of State and submit it to the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, Governor and Secretary of State.
The JLBC will then have 30 days to review and comment on the estimate. After that, the Secretary of State will certify that the effort has enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
If that happens, the Lieutenant Governor will need to call a recall election between 60 and 80 days from the date of certification.
According to the Secretary of State's Office, Monterey County had 11,510 valid signatures, San Benito County had 3,112 and Santa Cruz County had 6,378.
Several people have already announced their intentions to run for Governor in a recall election, most recently Caitlyn Jenner. Others include former Rep. Doug Ose, John Cox and former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. Newsom launched a campaign against the recall in March.
