Recall enables voters to remove a person from office before a term is completed, and to elect a new public official. A special election is held for this purpose.
Before a recall election can be held, a petition must be filed that has been signed by a certain number of voters. Usually the number must equal from 10 to 25 percent of the votes cast for this particular office during the previous election. The individual in question may give up the office voluntarily. If the individual does not do this, candidates for the office may file petitions in the usual way. The special election then becomes a contest between the new candidates and the officer whose recall is sought. The person receiving the largest vote in the election serves the rest of the term.
The movement to provide for recall of state and local officials came with efforts to provide for more direct popular control over government generally. The modern use of recall in the United States began with the charter of Los Angeles in 1903. Several hundred cities and 19 states have since adopted it. The states include Oregon (1908); California (1911); Colorado, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona (1912); Michigan (1913); Louisiana and Kansas (1914); North Dakota (1920); Wisconsin (1926); Alaska (1960); Montana (1976); Georgia (1979); Rhode Island (1992); New Jersey (1993); Minnesota (1996); and Illinois (2010). Virginia permits recall by trial, rather than election. The District of Columbia also allows recalls. Some states that use the recall do not apply it to judges. Mayors have often been recalled. The recall of a state officer is unusual. There have been only three gubernatorial recall elections in U.S. history. North Dakota removed a governor by recall in 1921, and California did so in 2003. But in 2012, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived a recall attempt.
People who favor the recall argue that voters should have a direct way of removing an officer whom they consider dishonest, incompetent, or heedless of public opinion. Most state constitutions provide for the removal of an officer by impeachment. But people sometimes wish to remove from office someone who is not guilty of an impeachable offense.
Opponents of recall point out that the practice may be abused. They say that able men and women may be unwilling to risk taking an office from which the voters may later remove them for no fault except the failure to go along with the public sentiment of the moment.
