Lawyers for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell are expected to take legal action after the number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election of the mayor has been decreased. Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin reached an agreement with the NoLaToya campaign on a number of signatures after it was determined there are about 25,000 inactive voters on the Orleans Parish voter rolls.
“I have a responsibility to the people of Louisiana and the people of Orleans and I had to have a logical way to get to a number and I think we did that,” said Freese.
The number of verified signatures needed is now just under 45,000, it was more than 49,000
Cantrell says recall effort is now an attempt to disenfranchise Black voters. Ardoin says that is a false assessment.
“There is no one being affected in terms of their current status, this is just for the number for the recall, until my staff does a deep dive and we issue a public report, no one is going to be changed,” said Ardoin.
The Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters is counting the signatures the NoLaToya campaign collected. They have until March 22nd to determine if they were successful in recalling the mayor. A recall election would take place in October.
Ardoin explains why it’s difficult to keep an accurate number of registered voters who live in Orleans Parish.
“When you have a population that is very transient that’s poor, they are not going to file change of address cards, they do not want bill collectors going after them,” said Ardoin.
The NoLaToya campaign is not saying how many signatures they collected. Ardoin believes it will be very close on whether they got enough certified signatures.
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