Did California check subscriptions for Newsom’s recalls, but not for mailing notes?

Last year, the move to oust Gavin Newsom began after growing frustration with the leadership of California’s Democratic governor.

Recall Gavin 2020 and Rescue California organizers cited several reasons why Newsom “failed Californians”, including rising unemployment, homelessness, high taxes, rising crime, lack of affordable housing, failure to comply with immigration laws and his decision to “nullify the will of the people in relation to the death penalty.”

Rescue California is a political committee that also helped recall California Governor Gray Davis in 2003. According to its website, Rescue California’s goal is to “increase current recall efforts by circulating petitions and validating signatures to ensure eligibility for and scheduling a special election to oust Governor Newsom. “

The movement gained momentum in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many Californians were increasingly upset by Newsom’s blocking policy, the launch of vaccines and after photos circulated online of a masked Newsom having dinner with lobbyists inside the French Laundry restaurant.

As of February 10, the revocation petition had reached more than 1.5 million signatures, according to the president of Rescue California and former president of the California Republican Party, Thomas Del Beccaro.

California law says petitions for the dismissal of state executive officers “must be signed by voters equal in number to 12 percent of the last vote for that office, and must include at least five counties equal in number to 1 percent of last vote for that municipality. ” According to the rescue website Rescue California, this means that 1,495,709 valid subscriptions are the minimum requirement for Newsom’s recall.

The claim

The recall effort was extended to collect the necessary signatures, which are now due on March 17. Counties have until April 29 to verify signatures.

Some people have expressed frustration online with the need to verify the validity of signatures on the recall petition.

Actor Kevin Sorbo tweeted that California is requiring signature verification for Newsom’s recall petition, but did not require the same verification for ballot papers for the November 2020 election.

Therefore, California is requiring verification of the signature for Gavin Newsom’s recall, but did not require it to mail on the ballots. That’s weird

– Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) February 15, 2021

The facts

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale responded to the tweet, claiming it was fake.

“California checked the signatures of the people who voted in the mail in 2020,” said Dale. “Counties compared the signatures on the voting envelopes with the signatures filed in the electoral records.”

It does not take a Herculean effort to discover that this viral claim is false.

California verified the signatures of the people who voted by mail in 2020. Counties compared the signatures on the ballot envelopes with the signatures on file in the electoral records. pic.twitter.com/KTqUVmjB6Z

– Daniel Dale (@ ddale8) February 15, 2021

The Twitter account for the California Secretary of State’s office shared a section of the California State Code that describes the signature verification process.

In a statement to Newsweek, the California Secretary of State’s office confirmed that county election officials check signatures on each ballot, initiative, referendum or petition for revocation and nomination document.

According to the California Code of Regulations, “for signature verification, the election officer must compare the signature on an initiative, referendum, recall, nomination or paper petition, signature in lieu of the deposit fee, and any other petition or paper must be compared to the voter’s signature (s) in the voter registration. In addition, the electoral officer must compare the signature on a voting envelope by postal vote and a provisional ballot envelope voted on with ( s) voter signature (s) on voter registration before counting a ballot. “

The California code also states that each person who signs the recall petition must be a registered voter in the jurisdiction of the employee against whom the recall attempt is being made. If the subscriber is not a registered voter in California, the subscription will not be counted. If the submitted petition contains more than 500 signatures, election officials can use a random sampling method to check the validity of signatures.

Although the signature verification process may vary slightly from county to county, state officials said the verification process “should generally be the same, whether they are looking at ballots or petitions.”

Before the November 2020 election, California was preparing for a record number of entry and exit ballots before election day.

According to election officials, the two-step signature verification process involved passing the ballots through a classifier that takes a picture of the signature on the ballot envelope and compares it to the voter’s signature on file.

“If it doesn’t look like a complete match, it expels it from the system and puts it in the file of some of our human eyes that look at the signature [on the envelope] and the signature we have on file to determine if they think it’s a match, “said Janna Haynes, a Sacramento County public information officer, in October 2020.

If the signatures did not pass these tests, the department said it would contact the voter and request that he present a new signature.

“I want voters to be sure that just because their signature doesn’t match, it doesn’t mean that we automatically discard their ballot. We make every effort to contact voters and ask them to send a new signature … we really work hard make sure every vote counts, “said Haynes.