Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has been the subject of public outrage recently for easing penalties on all crimes, including violent ones such as multiple homicides and sexual assault. A second attempt to recall him failed on Monday after officials ruled that nearly 30% of the signatures were found to be “invalid.”

Garcón was elected in 2020 and ran on the platform of criminal justice “reform,” gaining support from the Black Lives Matter movement and left-wing billionaire donor George Soros. In his time serving as DA, crime has surged – a trend that many people blame on his lax policies.

LA County DA George Gascón

The most recent recall effort seemed to be successful, gathering 715,833 signatures, a number that far exceeded the necessary 566,857 to represent 10% of registered voters in the country.

However, after a review of the petition, the county registrar released a statement saying, “520,050 signatures were found to be valid and 195,785 were found to be invalid. To qualify for the [November 2022] ballot, the petition required 566,857 signatures; therefore, the petition has failed to meet the sufficiency requirements and no further action shall be taken on the petition.”

In a breakdown of the invalid signatures, it is revealed that the petition – which fell short by 46,807 signatures – would have passed if the signatures were not rejected for the following categories: Different address (32,187), Mismatch Signature (9,490), and “Other” reasons (9,331).

Somehow, the LA County officials found nearly 30% of signatures on petitions to recall the highly unpopular district attorney, but during the 2020 election, the county rejected less than 1% of the mail-in ballots.

In the 2020 election, Michigan similarly failed to reject mail-in ballots after Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson instructed city clerks to ignore the signature matching law, telling them to presume the accuracy of absentee ballot signatures.

Why, then, do these petition signatures fall under so much scrutiny, but the validity of ballots for elections is nothing but an afterthought? When did it become okay for officials to pick and choose when to follow proper procedures?

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