Overview of States

with Recall

Overview of Voter Turnout in Select Recall Races

Power To The People: The Progressive Movement for the Recall, 1890s-1920

Additional Links

Recall at the local level

National Conference of State Legislatures Recall Page

Recall in the United States

Kurt A. Gardinier, Assistant Research Director, Initiative & Referendum Institute

The following information was compiled by Kurt Gardinier and unless otherwise noted comes directly from Thomas Cronin's book, The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).  It is the best resource that we have found to date on this important topic.  Information on how to order a copy of this book can be found below.

Recall is the procedural democracy device that allows voters to discharge and replace a public official. Eighteen states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the Virgin Islands provide for recall of elected officials, and at least thirty-six states permit the recall of various local officials. Recall requires a petition process, yet it needs more signatures than citizen initiatives (typically 25 percent of those voting in the last election for the position of the official to be recalled). It almost always requires a special election.

According to the National Civic League and the 2001 ICMA Municipal Form of Government Survey, 60.9% of U.S. cities have recall provisions, exceeding the percentages for initiative (57.8%) and popular referendum (46.7%). In the five years starting January 1996 and ending 2001, recall initiatives were filed against the mayor in 4.1% of U.S. cities, and against a council member in 5.3% of U.S. cities. Of those cities, the mayor was recalled in 17.6% of the elections, and the council member in 29.2% of the elections.  There have only been two successful recall efforts for Governor.  The first  took place in 1921 when North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier was recalled and the second was when California Governor Gray Davis was recalled on October 7, 2003.

The recall idea is based on the political theory that voters should retain the right of control over their elected officials. Candidates may be elected for a wide variety of reasons, including some that bear little relation to their ability to perform their public duties effectively. The premise of the recall is that if people can be elected for non-job related reasons, they can also be removed for a variety of reasons.

The Articles of Confederation (1781-89) provided for the recall and replacement of delegates appointed by the states even within their one-year terms, although this form of recall was exercised by state legislatures, not by the voters at large. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered but eventually rejected resolutions calling for this same type of recall.

The notion of a recall received attention at the New York and Virginia conventions of 1787-1788. In the end, the idea of placing a recall provision in the Constitution died for lack of support-at least from those participating in the ratifying conventions.

Perhaps as many as 4,000 to 5,000 recall elections have been held; several thousand more have been begun but have failed to qualify for lack of signatures. Countless recall drives fail because of technical and legal difficulties that arise even after signatures have been obtained.

A survey of existing research suggest that nearly 50 percent of the recalls that get to the election stage succeed in removing at least some of the elected officials targeted for removal. (In about a third of recall campaigns, more than one official is being recalled).

A study of recall efforts in Los Angeles, where more than forty-five recall elections have occurred, found voters generally have rejected “politically inspired” recalls-movements in which sour grapes or personal feuds and ambitions were the chief reason behind the recall. “Los Angeles voters have generally preferred to reserve the recall for its originally intended use (to weed out malfeasance and corruption) and to settle political questions at regular elections.” The same can be said of most citizens elsewhere who have exercised the right of recall.

Finally, judges are occasionally recalled in those states extending the recall to that office. In 1977 a state judge in Madison, Wisconsin, Archie Simonson, was quickly recalled by irate citizens who were aroused by a statement he had made in a rape case. He had suggested the sixteen-year-old young woman in question had been dressed in such a way as to tempt or invite sexual assault, and he placed the offending fifteen-year-old male youth on probation. Simonson quickly learned about the growing capacity of the feminist movement and its allies to mobilize public sentiment. He was recalled, and a woman judge was elected as his replacement. Another Wisconsin judge barely survived a recall election in 1982 after he said from the bench that a youthful victim of sexual assault had been unusually promiscuous.

Even though most elections are special elections, they have high voter turnout-indeed, usually higher than in the regular general election that first brought the candidate to office. In small or medium sized communities these turnouts are often impressive.

The recall has been used most often when arbitrary or incompetent officials have angered the public. It has sometimes been used when an emotional issue such as school integration or dramatic tax increases has divided a community. But although there have been occasions when the recall was used for the wrong motives, there is no evidence it has led to any loss of talented volunteers for elective office.

For additional information on this topic, please contact either Tom Cronin (author of Cronin, Thomas E. Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999) at (509) 527-5132 or by email at cronin@whitman.edu.  Dr. Cronin is a recognized expert on this topic.  If you would like a comment from someone affiliated with the Institute on this topic, please contact M. Dane Waters at (703) 723-9621 or by email at mdanewaters@iandrinstitute.org.