Two months after the effort to recall Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón failed, the campaign committee announced Monday it plans to sue the county’s Registrar of Voters, alleging the voter rolls were artificially inflated, and some signatures were falsely invalidated.
According to the Committee, independent and non-partisan data analysts estimated that Los Angeles County active voter rolls were allegedly overshot between at least 208,000 and up to 515,000 voters when county officials initially set the number of valid signatures for the recall to qualify.
If the estimate proves true, the effort to remove Gascón from office could have advanced onto a ballot.
“The initial review of invalidated signatures demonstrated “the Registrar’s counting process was seriously flawed, resulting in substantial errors, the wrongful invalidation of many valid signatures, and the disenfranchisement of thousands of Los Angeles County Voters,” the Committee wrote in a statement. “These extremely disturbing findings necessitate a complete and timely review of all invalidated signatures.”
The effort to recall Gascón emerged after the controversial district attorney took office in December 2020. Critics of Gascón formed the recall after his so-called progressive policies, like eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor and some felony offenses, reformed the City of Angels.
According to the Committee, volunteers began reviewing the invalid signatures on September 6 to lawfully examine within 21 days after the Registrar’s office announced the petition had failed to meet the requirements.
The Committee claims that 39% of invalid signatures reviewed were improperly falsified as printed, non-matching, and unregistered. Others were marked invalid due to duplicate signatures, while some had filled in a different address instead of the one registered toward the voter.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan said last August his office had finished verifying the 715,833 petition signatures sent in to recall the controversial progressive DA.
To qualify for the recall, 566,857 valid petition signatures were needed to advance.
Logan’s office reported only 520,050 valid signatures were recorded, with the remaining 195,783 signatures marked as invalid, claiming nearly 90,000 of them were unregistered to vote and approximately 45,000 were duplicates.
Officials argue such issues could have substantially affected the outcome of the recall and have accused the Registrar of placing “arbitrary and capricious limitations” on the review process that limits the number of hours, workstations, and number of reviewers to information that will help them determine whether the invalid signatures are legitimate.”
“This review is currently being obstructed by the Registrar’s office,” the Committee said. “The Recall DA George Gascon Committee will be filing for injunctive relief imminently and is also exploring other significant issues, such as the inaccurate and inflated number of signatures required to qualify the recall due to bloated voter rolls.”
A Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office spokesperson told The Daily Wire that officials have not seen the petition for relief yet.
Recall officials said that current restrictions imposed by the Registrar would take more than a year to review the invalidated signatures.