NEW ORLEANS — Organizers seeking to push a recall election for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell say they are confident that they have reached enough signatures to force a vote.
NOLATOYA.org co-founder Eileen Carter said Monday that the organization had secured more than 49,000 signatures on its petition for a recall election.
The campaign filed a lawsuit against the Orleans Parish Registrar claiming that more than 30,000 voters listed voters in the parish have either moved out of the state or to another parish within the state. The numbers are important to the campaign as it tries to reach the threshold of signatures needed to get a recall of Mayor LaToya Cantrell on the ballot.
Last week, organizers said they were 1,029 signatures shy of the nearly 50,000 signatures needed to petition for a recall election. The deadline for the signatures is Wednesday, February 22.
If the 30,000 voters or more were eliminated from the list of voters, that would reduce the number of signatures needed by approximately 6,000.
Cantrell has three more years left in her term-limited second term in office.
The organization said that simply meeting the minimum number of 20% of registered voters might not be enough as there is a chance some of the signatures could be deemed invalid by the Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters. The recall committee estimates it needs an additional 9,000 signatures to overcome any signatures that may be invalidated by the registrar.
As the deadline for signatures neared, the campaign made a real effort in gathering signatures with its TV advertisements, mailed fliers, and signing events at festivals and public events.
The organization's announcements come just hours after Cantrell sparked another controversy by making an obscene gesture to someone at the Krewe of Tucks parade on Saturday.
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