There are enough valid signatures to call for a recall election of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, the county registrar of voters said Monday.
On March 4, the Alameda Registrar of Voters received 123,374 signatures supporting the petition to recall Price.
According to the registrar, each signature has been examined and the number of valid signatures was found to be sufficient to call for a recall election. The office said that nearly 50,000 signatures were disqualified, but the required amount of valid signatures has been met.
The registrar will certify its results with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors at the next regular meeting for which an item may be placed on the agenda, which is currently scheduled for April 30.
The proponents needed a minimum of 73,195 valid signatures. The number of valid signatures on the petition is 74,757. The total number of signatures disqualified was 48,617.
Brenda Grisham, SAFE principal officer, says this is a historic moment for the community.
“We have a lot of people that will never understand why we’re recalling Pamela Price,” she said. “But then there are thousands of people that have been victims of different types of crimes and had thought that they were getting justice in the previous administration and then to come over to this administration and it’s totally different.”
Meanwhile, Price's campaign lawyer says the recall violates the law for many reasons.
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“What the county’s been doing is picking and choosing provisions in the charter and saying 'these apply, but these don’t apply,'” said Jim Sutton, campaign lawyer for Price.
He claims some of the people who gathered the signatures were not county residents and that the county failed to verify the signatures within a 10-day deadline.
He plans to make his case when the board of supervisors meet to certify the results on April 30.
“Of course, we’re going to make the argument to our supervisors that they can’t schedule the election because it’s illegal. Because the registrar’s office didn’t comply with these very clear provisions in the county,” said Sutton.
SAFE is hoping for an early special election, rather than it showing up on the November ballot.
“A lot of damage can be done between now and November and we want to mitigate that as much as possible,” said Grishma.
NBC Bay Area political analyst Larry Gerston believes the results will depend on when the election is held.
“If it’s held separately before the November election, then you might see a very low turnout. Who knows how that will go. If it’s held in conjunction with the November election, well that could be different too,” he said.
District Attorney Price did not immediately release a statement about the recall announcement.
