(Bloomberg) -- The bid to recall progressive Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon failed to qualify for the ballot because the campaign lacked enough valid signatures.
The Los Angeles county clerk’s office said it verified only 520,050 signatures, short of the 566,857 required to put the referendum on the ballot. The office said Monday in a statement that 195,783 signatures submitted by supporters of the initiative were rejected because they included unregistered voters, duplicate names and incorrect or out-of-county addresses.
“The petition has failed to meet the sufficiency requirements and no further action shall be taken,” the clerk’s office said.
Gascon will avoid the fate of Chesa Boudin, who was removed from office by San Francisco voters in June, with both men facing backlash for being soft on crime as the rate of violence jumped. Gascon, who took office in December 2020 and already fought back an earlier recall attempt, faced criticism for eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor crimes. He was forced to roll back some policies, such as refusing to try juveniles as adults.
The campaign to recall Gascon said it will review the rejected signatures and verification process, calling the results surprising.
“To interpret this in any other way other than a wholesale rejection of Gascon’s dangerous polices would be disingenuous, or naive at best,” it said, pointing to the more than 500,000 valid signatures it garnered.
Last week, the campaign to recall Gascon, which says it’s raised more than $6 million, accused officials of violating the rules for verifying signatures.
Gascon has said LA’s problems are the product of policies that “over-criminalize” communities without creating a path to reduce crime.
(Updates with recall campaign’s comment in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)
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