By Paige Laver
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The second campaign to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has finished collecting signatures, but the recall’s key organizers have not provided a report on how many signatures they received in over two weeks.
To grant a recall election, organizers must gather 51,235 valid signatures by Oct. 25. The first recall campaign fell short of 1,714 verified signatures, with organizers pointing to the confusion over the two separate recalls as a significant impediment to collecting signatures.
This second recall campaign announced Monday evening, a week before the submission deadline that “the signature gathering phase of our campaign is now closed. We will share the final number of signatures once every signature is collected,” the organizers told SFGate.
Organizers did not respond to multiple SFGATE requests for comment on why the campaign has not provided a recent progress report yet.
When looking back on the recall of Gov. Gavin Newson, proponents gathering signatures and three members of the San Francisco Board of Education provided frequent progress reports in the weeks leading up to their corresponding deadlines.
The San Francisco Board of Education recall had the same signature threshold, with the goal of gathering 70,000 signatures because some will be deemed invalid during the city review process, and organizers often went to Twitter to share their progress.
“OVER 60K RECALL SIGNATURES!!!” one group wrote in August, “And just over two weeks left to get 10k more signatures to ensure we qualify.”
Once the board recall organizers hit their goal of 70,000 signatures, they announced on Twitter “WE DID IT! 70K SIGNATURES!!!.. Thanks to EVERYONE of you for helping us get here!”
The anti-Boudin recall organizers previously provided regular progress reports, citing a 70,000 signature goal up until Aug. 25, at which point they announced that they have collected 63,720 signatures. Then, over a month passed before the group wrote on Oct. 4, “As of today 1 in 10 San Franciscans have signed the petition to #RecallChesa.”
This statement would imply the campaign has more than 80,000 signatures, blowing past the goal.
It is unusual that the month of September saw no progress reports or fanfare around apparently exceeding the 70,000 signatures goal, especially given how organizers for the Newsom and Board of Education recalls celebrated hitting their respective goals.
Many questions are yet to be answered and San Franciscans remain waiting until the group provides a new progress report, which apparently won’t come until after they tally all the signatures they collected or make a statement on why they stopped issuing such reports.
