By Audrey Sawyer
LOS ANGELES, CA – Hundreds of signatures on a petition to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón belonged to dead people, according to the county registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office.
The office has stated a review of the petition found 367 signatures of individuals who had died prior to the recall being announced, and is now calling for the attorney general of California to investigate the possibility of fraud.
The Times noted Gascón took office in 2020 to immediate criticism and attempts to remove him from office after he announced progressive modifications to the prosecutor’s office, including the office no longer seeking the death penalty, limiting when accused would be held in lieu of bail, and ending the use of sentencing enhancements.
The changes not only placed Gascón at odds against his own local law enforcement officials and prosecutors, said the Times, but made him a target for conservative and Republican figures who claim progressive (“woke”) prosecutors are at fault for crime increases.
The recall campaign accused the registrar’s office of wrongfully validating signatures and a cover up to keep the campaign from reviewing signatures invalidated by the county, explained the Times.
The first recall campaign in 2021 failed due to a lack of organization and fundraising, and last year’s recall had about 715,000 signatures submitted by the recall campaign.
Ten percent of eligible voters (556,857) are required to place Gascón back on the ballot, but the registrar’s office said about 27 percent of the signatures were not valid, with the majority not registered to vote or from duplicate signatures, reported the Times.
The response from the recall campaign, the Times added, was to file a suit against the registrar office, claiming many of the signatures were inaccurately invalidated. The recall campaign further argued in court the office has not provided proper access to view the recall petition and invalidated signatures.
Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said in a statement the office would continue to review the two petitions alongside any others submitted within the last year for any “possible irregularities.
“The integrity of these processes is fundamental to our representative form of government and influences the confidence and participation of the electorate, attempts to compromise the integrity of the process ought to be scrutinized,” Logan added, according to the Times story.
