Kshama Sawant recall group targets November election as it nears signature threshold
Jul 7, 2021, 7:50 AM
Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant. (Seattle City Council, Flickr Creative Commons)
(Seattle City Council, Flickr Creative Commons)
The campaign to recall Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant says that it’s nearing the threshold required to get on the ballot by this November’s general election.
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According to a recent fundraising mailer from the group leading the effort, it has now collected over 9,000 out of the 10,739 required signatures to move forward.
The recall campaign began collecting signatures in late April, triggering a 180-day window to gather the requisite amount of valid signatures from registered District 3 voters. The number of signatures needed constitutes 25% of total votes cast in the last election for the district’s council seat in 2019.
Should the group gather the roughly 1,700 remaining signatures it needs (and assuming they’re all certified by King County Elections), it would then put a simple “yes” or “no” recall vote on the ballot for the next regularly scheduled election.
Technically, the group has until mid-October before its window expires, but in its mailer, it stated that it would need to hit its goal by the start of August in order to make it on to the November ballot. After that, the next opportunity would be a special election scheduled for February of 2022, or another special election set for next April.
Meanwhile, money has continued to flow in both for and against the recall fight from two major fundraising entities: Recall Sawant, and the Kshama Sawant Solidarity Campaign.
Battle over Sawant recall has now seen over $1 million raised combined
As of July 5, Sawant Solidarity has raised over $569,000 across nearly 5,700 contributors. Of those contributors, 50% live outside Seattle city limits, while 29% reside in Sawant’s council district.
The recall campaign has kept pace with its own fundraising efforts, having brought in over $536,000 from close to 4,500 contributors, 35% of whom live in District 3. Another 19% are from outside of Seattle.
