Eric Ting, SFGATE Oct. 25, 2021 (SFGate.com)
Organizers hoping to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced they collected over 83,000 signatures from voters, a number well above the 51,325 threshold required to force a recall election.
Monday is the deadline for organizers to submit signatures, and the city now has 30 days to validate signatures. Some will be deemed invalid in the review process, but it seems unlikely more that 32,000 will be thrown out.
Under San Francisco law, the recall election “must be held be held not less than 105 nor more than 120 days from the date” the city confirms a sufficient amount of signatures have been collected, unless the date of the recall election falls “within 105 days of a previously scheduled general municipal or statewide election.”
In that event, the city is “required to consolidate the special recall election with the general municipal or statewide election,” and the recall election can be held more than 120 days after the signature review process ends.
Assuming the review process concludes sometime at the end of November, the recall election would likely be scheduled for sometime in mid-March, which falls within 105 days of the statewide June 7 primary election. Which is a long of way of saying the Chesa Boudin recall election will likely be held on June 7, 2022, consolidated with the statewide primary.
After organizers announced they exceeded their signature goal, they also announced that two prosecutors who worked under Boudin departed the district attorney’s office and joined and the recall campaign.
The prosecutors did interviews with NBC Bay Area and the San Francisco Chronicle that were widely shared on social media over the weekend.
Written By Eric Ting
Eric Ting is the editor of California Issues, SFGATE’s politics section. He is an East Bay native who has a Master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University. Eric did his undergrad at Pomona College, where he majored in politics and minored in economics. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com
