Any elector of the District may file a protest against the filed recall petitions. Seventeen protests were filed with the Designated Election Official (DEO), AJ Beckman of Public Alliance challenging the sufficiency of the petitions. Initially the letters were not accepted as protests because some of the claims challenged the truth of statements made in the petition grounds. The statute states that protesters are entitled to a hearing and that's what happened last week.

There is a legal question involved. The statute says that the petition grounds for the recall "must not include any profane or false statement."  But the same statute also says that "electors ...are the sole and exclusive judges of the legality, reasonableness, and sufficiency of the grounds.

This has been interpreted by the recall committee and the DEO to mean that because the false statements are contained within the grounds, the DEO cannot determine whether the statements are false.

Protesters asserted that the DEO had the authority to disallow the petitions based upon the false statements. The recall committee objected to any evidence which proved the allegations contained in the petitions was false, and the objection was upheld by the DEO. Therefore, protesters were not allowed to prove the false allegations.

Protesters were allowed to make a few offers of proof. That is evidence that the DEO will not consider, but is offerred for the appellete court's information. The protesters also objected to the sufficiency of the petitions in how they were circulated, interference by HGA security, discrepancies in the affidavit dates, and a disqualifying interest of a notary. If necessary, the protesters will appeal to the District Court. Below are the hearing recordings.

Zoom Meeting Recordings

After clicking on the recording link above, check your computer's Downloads folder for the file if it doesn't open on your screen.