Gascón Recall Effort Fails: Los Angeles District Attorney To Remain In Office After Signature Effort Falls Short – Updated

deadline.com:

UPDATED with results: An effort to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was rejected today, with the county clerk’s office announcing that organizers submitted only 520,050 valid petition signatures, short of the required 566,857.Organizers of the recall submitted a total of 715,833 petition signatures to the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office in an effort to force Gascón into a recall election.

County officials initially conducted a random sampling of the signatures to verify their validity. Based on that initial sampling, the county undertook an effort to verify all 715,833 signatures individually.The county announced Monday that 195,783 of the signatures were invalid.

In many cases, the person signing the petition was not a registered voter, and there were also more than 45,000 duplicate signatures, according to the county.“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,” Gascón campaign spokesperson Elise Moore told Deadline Monday. “And we remain strongly committed to that work.

The DA’s primary focus is and has always been keeping us safe and creating a more equitable justice system for all. Today’s announcement does not change that.” Gascón has been under fire since taking office in December 2020, when he issued a series of directives critics blasted as being soft on crime.