SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California gubernatorial recall election against Gavin Newsom will happen after less than 50 people requested to remove their signatures from the recall effort.
Only 43 of the more than 1.7 million Californians who signed the recall petition against Gov. Gavin Newsom chose to remove their name from the list, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
The final report from the Secretary of State's office validated 1,719,943 signatures on the recall petition. The recall effort needed 1,495,709 verified signatures to trigger a recall election. Approximately 441,406 signatures were invalidated.
State election law dictates that voters be given a 30-day period – from April 26 to June 8 – to request county officials remove their signatures from the recall petition.
With the removed signatures, the actual final tally now stands at 1,719,900 – more than enough to trigger the recall election.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber sent a letter to the State Department of Finance (DOF) reporting the withdrawn signatures. The Finance Department will now estimate the cost of the recall if it’s held in a special election and the cost if it’s held during the next regularly scheduled election in November 2021. A recent estimate by the DOF showed the recall could cost roughly $215 million.
An official date for the recall election remains uncertain. Several mechanisms remain in place in order to certify the recall before its put to the voters, with possible dates as early as September 2021.
