Some answers on the Calif. process of recalling Davis

LOS ANGELES -- Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis faces a Republican-led effort to remove him from office. If the drive qualifies for the ballot, it would make him the first governor in state history to face a recall election. Here are answers to some questions about the recall process.

Q: Why are people trying to recall Davis?

A: Davis was elected in a landslide in 1998 and re-elected in November, but his approval ratings have sunk amid the state's energy crisis, a $38 billion budget deficit and the prospect of higher taxes and fees. Recall backers claim he misled the public about the extent of the budget deficit to help his re-election, which he denies.

Q: How many signatures do recall supporters need?

A: Proponents must collect 897,158 valid signatures from registered voters to get the recall on the ballot -- 12 percent of the number of people who voted in California's last gubernatorial election. On Monday, they turned in the last of the 1.6 million signatures they've collected.

Q: How long do recall backers have to get the signatures?

A: Until Sept. 2. State law gives proponents 160 days from the date the recall petition was approved by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, a Democrat, to get the needed signatures.

Q: How do elections officials count signatures and verify they are valid?

A: County elections officials validate signatures through a random sampling process of hand-checking against voter rolls 3 percent of signatures received or 500 signatures, whichever is greater.

The secretary of state then uses a mechanical formula run by a computer program to extrapolate from the numbers being reported by counties the total number of valid signatures received.

A survey by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday found that county officials had received nearly 1.6 million signatures and were finding about 85 percent of them valid.

Q: How does the secretary of state determine there are enough signatures for the recall to qualify?

A: If at any point before the Sept. 2 deadline the secretary of state, based on tallies from the counties, determines proponents have exceeded 110 percent of valid signatures -- which would be 986,874 signatures -- he certifies that the recall has qualified.

If Sept. 2 arrives without the secretary of state having made that determination, signature collection stops and counties have eight business days to count the total number of raw signatures received.

The measure fails if counties find that fewer than 897,158 signatures were received.

Q: How much would it cost to have a recall?

A: A special election would cost $30 million to $35 million, according to the secretary of state.

Q: What would the ballot be like?

A: A recall ballot would have two sections. In the first, voters would vote yes or no on recalling Davis. In the second, they would choose from a list of candidates to replace him. Davis' name would not be on the list.

Q: How does someone become a candidate in a recall election?

A: A candidate must declare his or her candidacy by 59 days before the election date. Anyone can get on the ballot by filing with their county clerk, garnering 65 signatures from registered voters of their party and paying $3,500. In lieu of the filing fee, they could submit 10,000 signatures from registered voters of any party.

Q: What happens when the election is over?

A: If the recall succeeds, Davis would immediately be replaced by the candidate with the most votes, even if that candidate did not have a majority of votes. If the recall failed, Davis could be reimbursed for his election costs, and there could not be another recall election for six months.

Source: California secretary of state and AP research