Sonoma County District Attorney To Face Recall Election

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Voters will decide whether to recall Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch in a special election to be held later this year, the county's Clerk-Recorder-Assessor-Registrar of Voters Deva Marie Proto said Wednesday.

Proponents of the recall have gathered more than the required 30,056 signatures to trigger a recall election, Proto said in a news release.

"The Board of Supervisors has to set the election date within 14 days of the petition being certified to them," Proto said.

The matter will be brought before the board at its May 25 meeting.

Proto is recommending an election date of Sept. 14.

Those seeking to have Ravitch recalled filed a notice of intention on Oct. 22, 2020.

On Nov. 10, 2020, recall petitions were approved for circulation by the Registrar of Voters.

Proponents were required to gather valid signatures from 10 percent of Sonoma County’s registered voters, which came out to 30,056.

On April 12, a recall petition consisting of 43,316 face-value signatures was filed with the Registrar of Voters Office.

Pursuant to California election law, Proto said she conducted a random sample of the submitted signatures and found that, based on the statistical results, 108 percent of the necessary signatures were estimated to be valid. If the percentage of estimated valid signatures falls between 90 and 110 percent, California law requires the county registrar to perform a full signature check of the petition.

On May 11, Proto's office completed a full signature check and certified the petition as sufficient, finding 32,128 valid signatures, or 106.9 percent of the required number of 30,056.

Proto expects to certify the petition before the Board of Supervisors at its next regularly scheduled meeting, which is Tuesday, May 18.

From there, the Board is required to issue an order to call a special election for the recall within 14 days. Once the order is issued, the election must be held within 88 days at the soonest but no later than 125 days.

The estimated cost for the countywide special election is $2 to $3 per voter — or approximately $606,192 to $909,228 — based on the current number of registered voters, Proto said.

Some of the costs include:

• Creating and printing ballots and voter information guides
• Increased payroll costs due to the hiring of polling place workers, temporary election workers, and overtime hours
• Precinct supplies and transportation of those supplies
• Envelopes, labels, letters, and printing costs for ballots, voters, districts, candidates, and others
• Postage for outgoing ballots, return ballots, voter information guides, and correspondence
• IT setup assistance and legal assistance

Costs vary and depend on several factors such as the number of registered voters, the number of replacement ballots required, the number of ballots printed for each polling place, voter turnout, and when/how ballots are returned, Proto said.

Here is the breakdown of signatures on the petition:

• Total signatures submitted/checked: 43,316
• Approved: 32,128
• Not registered: 4,955
• Registered at a different address: 2,857
• No residence address given: 407
• Cannot identify: 234
• Signatures don’t match: 1,030
• Out of county: 293
• No signature: 54
• Duplicate: 1,002
• Registered late: 255
• Declaration incomplete: 89
• Printed signature: 7
• Wrong city for street address: 5

Recall Ravitch?

Supporters of the recall say it's time to recall Ravitch after "10 years of failed leadership" and that she has a "troubling record on racial justice" because she has "failed to produce accountability in law enforcement, wrongfully declined to prosecute the killing of an unarmed 13-year-old [Andy Lopez], and dismissed calls for justice for a hate-crime victim."

Recall supporters also say Ravitch has done too little in addressing the role of PG&E on behalf of wildfire victims in the county.

Opponents of the recall say it is an effort by wealthy interests, largely funded by an individual, to undermine the independence of the office.

The Sonoma County Democratic Party in March issued a statement opposing the petition.

Ravitch began her career as a prosecutor in 1987 for the Alameda County.District Attorney's Office until 1990 when she started working at the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office. She was chief deputy district attorney in Mendocino County when she won the Sonoma County district attorney election and returned.

That was in 2011 and Ravitch was the first woman elected as the Sonoma County district attorney. She is currently serving her second term as DA and has said she would not run for re-election in 2022.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.