NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Latoya Cantrell has begun her legal fight over how many signatures are needed to trigger a recall election.
But if you haven’t been following this story closely, we’re going to take it back to basics.
Your three major players are the mayor, the NoLatoya campaign, and the Secretary of State’s Office.
NoLatoya had six months to collect signatures from 20% of New Orleans’ active voters.
They met their deadline and immediately filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State’s Office, claiming the number of active voters in the parish was not up to date and was actually much lower.
After days of arguing in the courtroom, the Secretary of State’s Office agreed – just for purpose of the lawsuit – to lower the number of active numbers by 25,000.
25,000 is a number you’ve heard a lot.
Here’s why it’s significant: fewer active voters in the parish means fewer signatures needed by the recall campaign.
So, striking this deal – even though it’s a hypothetical, and no one is actually being moved to ‘inactive’ status – lowers the number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election by thousands of signatures.
Now, the mayor wants to throw out the deal. A lawsuit lays out why, and says in part, that the judge who presided over the case actually signed the recall and didn’t disclose the conflict of interest.
But even if the mayor’s lawsuit doesn’t succeed, the recall effort may still have enough signatures to try to oust her.
That’s because no matter what motions are filed, behind the scenes, the Registrar of Voters still has to count and verify all of the signatures collected by NoLatoya. That’s happening right now.
It’s a lot to digest, and we’re still really only at the beginning of this recall drama. It’s going to keep playing out in front of judges and maybe eventually, voters.
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