NEW ORLEANS — It’s been months since the recall petition against Mayor Cantrell was filed and in less than three weeks, we’ll know whether or not there will be a recall vote. Earlier this week we learned the threshold of signatures the petition needs to force that vote was lowered. So much has happened in the last week but so many questions remained.
We wanted to recap what we know so far and look at what’s next.
Wednesday, February 22 the group, Nolatoya Recall, turned in the petition signatures to the Registrar of Voters. Prior to turning them in, the group filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State and the Registrar claiming the voter rolls were inaccurate and therefore so was the number of signatures they needed.
A court proceeding began Monday February 27 and after three days, they ultimately came to an agreement. The Secretary of State used data from past canvases to calculate the number of active registered voters given to the registrar for the recall petition should’ve been cut by 25,000. As a result of that deal, the threshold of signatures the petition needs went from about 50,000 to 45,000.
The registrar is now working to validate the signatures. If the petition has enough signatures, it will go tot the Governor who will set the date for a recall vote.
Many, like residents and elected officials alike, are asking for the registrar’s office for transparency during the process. WWLTV asked the registar Friday if we can document the process and if they could speak to us about it. A representative for the office said they won’t be doing any interviews or providing comments at this time.
The questions we have include, how exactly does the office validate the signatures Who and how many people are working to validate the signatures? What documents are the petition signatures being compared to?
Not only do we not know how the signatures are being certified, we also don’t know how many are on the petition. The Nolatoya group has not released the number of signatures they’ve gathered.
“we just wanted the natural order of progression our number isn’t going to move their number was vacillating we wanted, I think anybody would be like that’s fair to know what theirs is before I tell you mine come on now,” Eileen Carter, vice chair of the petition effort said.
Carter says the group hasn’t been able to meet yet since the litigation but once they do “you all will be the first to know because we definitely want to make sure we are open with the public.”
The registrar has until March 22 to verify the signatures.
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