Her solidarity campaign says it will announce its plans Friday morning to outmaneuver the effort to recall Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant by finishing the job for its opponents and collecting the final signatures required to put the vote on the November ballot.
The Kshama Solidarity has called a Friday morning press conference at the King County Elections headquarters to announce the new initiative.
The move seems designed to use any strength and momentum of its opponents against them. Earlier this week, Recall Sawant campaign manager Henry Bridger announced the signature collecting effort was moving into its final stage for a push to put the recall vote on the November General Election ballot with around 9,000 of the needed 10,739 signatures collected.
But in the world of political maneuverings, it is not always clear who is really making the first move. High turnout could be a concern for the recall camp with general elections typically bringing out higher rates of participation and Sawant campaigns continuing to show major get out the vote strength under Washington’s all-mail system.
In April, CHS reported on the recall campaign’s formation, early fundraising, and strategies. Bridger, campaign manager and chair of Recall Sawant, said at the time in a press conference in Cal Anderson Park with CHS and a small contingent of local television news media that the recall vote could not be approved in time for the August primary ballot and officials told the campaign a special election can’t be held between the primary and the November General Election. The recall campaign backers didn’t want to appear on the general election ballot, Bridger said at the conference.
Three months later, and the strategies have shifted. Bridger has since denied any concerns about being part of the November vote and now both campaigns are pushing for a fall decision.
Organizers need nearly 11,000 signatures from District 3 residents to put the recall on the ballot. Only D3 voters will participate in the yes/no recall vote. If the majority of D3 voters choose yes on the recall, the council would select a temporary replacement until the next general election in the city. The winner in that vote would finish Sawant’s current term through the end of 2023.
CHS reported here in May on the start of the signature gathering effort that has focused on a by-mail strategy while both campaigns have occasionally tangled in the streets.
The campaigns have also argued over Sawant’s admission of guilt for improperly promoting the Tax Amazon ballot initiative, one of the issues behind the recall effort.
The on the ground efforts also continue. Saturday, Kshama Solidarity will host a “volunteer appreciation” picnic in the Central District’s Pratt Park as they gear up for the surprising next step in the political contest — gathering signatures for the opposing campaign.
(Image: Kshama Solidarity)
UPDATE 12:45 PM: The first thing Sawant did Friday morning after announcing the move? The D3 rep signed to put her own recall on the ballot.
“Our message today, from our movement to the Recall is: put up or shut up,” Sawant said, according to the campaign’s press release on Friday’s announcement. “You say you want to turn in your signatures and get on the ballot in November? Then do it. The Solidarity Campaign will collect the rest. Let’s have a vote.”
The Kshama Solidarity campaign says supporters can find them “at their typical tabling locations” to sign the recall petition. Look for the tables “with the red and white signs all along Broadway” if you “want to fight back against the Republican attack on voters’ rights, stand with Kshama against the right-wing recall,” the campaign statement reads.
Kshama Solidarity spokesperson Bryan Koulouris tell CHS the idea around forcing a November vote had been on the table but became “a really serious idea” when the recall campaign announced it was close.
One driver was to avoid being blamed for delaying the vote, Koulouris said, but his campaign also believes the Recall Sawant camp would prefer a special election this winter over a high turnout general election vote.
“We’re not convinced they’re moving for November,” he said. “Don’t trust they want high voter turnout. They have more in common with the Republicans and repression of votes.”
Koulouris also laughed away any suggestion that his campaign’s push for a vote in November is related to fundraising challenges. “I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about Kshama Sawant’s fundraising ability,” he said.
For Kshama Solidarity, there is hope the signature move puts the recall on a playing court they’re familiar with.
“The more people who vote, the better for us,” Koulouris said. “That’s been the case for every election that Kshama’s been in.”
UPDATE x2: Some pundits are also pointing out another angle CHS reported on at the start of the Recall Sawant campaign: There is the likelihood that putting the recall vote on the November will drive very strong turnout among District 3 voters and that could impact the two citywide city council and the mayor’s race with a higher proportion of votes coming from some of the city’s most progressive, farthest left-leaning neighborhoods.
UPDATE x3 7/13/2021 2:45 PM: The Recall Sawant campaign has lodged a complaint over the signature gambit alleging the Kshama Solidarity Campaign is “co-opting the official Recall Committee and its signature gathering process” by confusing voters with a photocopied petition to sign.
“The Kshama Solidarity photocopied petitions don’t have the security provisions and have not been screened by the official Recall Committee for validation prior to submittal to King County Elections, nor have the Kshama Solidarity signature gatherers been officially screened to collect signatures by the Recall Committee,” a statement from the recall campaign says.
The campaign say it has written a letter to King County Elections about the issue.
“The Recall Committee has already received tainted petitions from Sawant supporters with fictitious names and fraudulent signatures,” campaign manager Henry Bridger says in the statement. “These illegal attempts by Council Member Sawant to disenfranchise Seattle voters amounts to voter suppression and will not be tolerated. We are expecting the King County Elections and the King County prosecutor to take corrective action against Council Member Sawant and the Kshama Solidarity Campaign as soon as tomorrow.”
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Now we’re having to put up with posters of her on every utility pole on 15th and spanning out I’m sure,ugh.
Zero consideration.
Political snakes.
Yes – the republicans from Spokane and Kennewick who are among funding this recall in a district they shouldn’t care about. I agree. Bad tactics from the Recall campaign. Very snake like.
Scuse me… 60% of Sawant’s funds are coming from out of state completely…
correction outside of Seattle completely – the numerical breakdown doesn’t say if they are out of state, but if you look at the donor list you’ll certainly see quite a few that are….
You are going to have to be more specific, Dino, this is Seattle.
Interfering with a campaign. Causing voter confusion. Distracting from the truth.
I have always said that I thought the ‘recall’ effort was bad tactics, that it could actually galvanize her support.. And now it appears Sawant’s own supporters agree.
I love Kshama. Whatever it takes to get in front of this republican hitjob from non-D3 residents who are using deep pockets to silence her and constituents!
Go Sawant!
You love Sawant…and have all your facts wrong. Not a surprise.
follow the money. > Swant’s financial support is largely out of state.
More donors of Sawant are from outside D3 than inside. Half are from outside Seattle. Many are international.
D3 is the playpen for out of area money. Its pathetic.
Is that poster serious….. OMG there are 400 Republicans in Seattle and they are against them…… Or is that 360 and they are double counting the Republicans who also donated to Trump?
That is the best they could do to “prove” that the recall is a vast right wing conspiracy and not her own liberal constituents who either never wanted her in the first place or who became disillusioned with her?
Let’s not forget that less than 20% of the financial support for her anti-recall effort actually comes from D3 and 60% from outside of Seattle altogether…
You know there are donations from outside Seattle to the recall campaign, right? About 1000 of them. And since you made me curious, there are 18,000 people within the city who voted for Trump. It’s worth remembering that people with actually right wing beliefs do live in Seattle, and I’ll bet they claim to be liberal.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-voters-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-king-county/
16% of recall contributions have come from outside of Seattle
60% of Sawant’s contributions have come from outside of Seattle
41% of recall contributions have come from D3
19% of Sawant’s contributions have come from D3
And don’t forget, regardless who has contributed money the signatures (and eventually the votes) can only come from D3.
In 2020 in all of D3 there were 3,946 Trump votes – only about 5% of all registered D3 voters. If this was about conservatives and not about overall dissatisfaction in the district it would have never even gotten off of the ground.
853 donors to the recall campaign from outside Seattle (as of 7/7).
Compare that with 2,827 donors to Kshama solidarity from outside Seattle.
Yes, it is totally hogwash to claim that “360+ Republicans and 100+ Trump voters” are supporters of the recall. The simple fact is that, when donating, one does NOT specify their political affiliation, so there is no way the pro-Sawant campaign can make that claim. Shameless!
Except by, you know, having other sources of data that they can match with the list of people who donated. Magic!
Your comment is just spin. What data sources are you referring to? And, even if there were such sources, how do you know that Sawant supporters are actually using them?
It is likely that Sawant’s minions are just making up the claim about “360+ Republicans and 100+ Trump voters.” In other words, lying.
If the recall campaign truly was serious about being on the November ballot, then they would have said so from the very start. Good reporting.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but just because the recall campaign has enough signatures in time to qualify for the November election doesn’t mean the recall campaign has to actually submit them by that time frame. They could still hold the signatures and submit them in September for a Feb 2022 vote.
This is a political face saving move by Sawant trying to delegitimize the recall campaigns ability to collect the signatures on its own so quickly. The other issue is Kshama Solidarity campaign donations have really slowed down and she has a bloated paid staff that it might not have the money to keep paying beyond Nov.
They could, but if Sawant’s campaign can say they definitely have enough signatures well before the deadline, then they’ll have to publicly defend their reason for holding it off the ballot. I can’t think of any reason except as an attempt to reduce the number of voters – and that in itself will help drive an attention campaign to increase turnout at an off-time election.
Savvy political move on her teams’s part after seeing the writing on the wall that this is going to make it on the ballot. Allows them (1) to take control of the narrative and (2) muddies the water enough to message “see the only people that are signing this petition are Trumpers and my supporters signing in defiance.”
Hahahahahahaha. Awesome. You know what’s zero consideration? Some people deciding they didn’t like who the majority of the neighborhood elected to represent them (twice) and trying to get the courts and eastside money to overturn the election results to their liking. Supporters of the recall effort have only themselves to blame for the terrible hardship of looking at Sawant posters. OMG posters are so much worse than having to vote and vote and re-vote again to keep the person that the majority of the neighborhood elected to office in place. I meant how I voted (twice) and I’m really angry about this recall campaign.
I have lived on Capitol Hill for 21 years. I lived in a one bedroom apartment with 3 people and I donated to get rid of her.
You don’t get to deny your white privilege by simply declaring you X roommates. That’s not how it works.
I think the commenter was merely trying to counter the “eastside money” narrative that amy was promoting.
Two things:
The court did not find that she had broken the law. They found that the recall petition made a plausible claim that she had done something which would be against the law. The recall process is necessary. *This* recall is a bunch of asses fighting someone they disagree with politically. And fwiw, anecdotally, I haven’t heard of any former Sawant supporters who will vote to recall her, but I do know a bunch of not-supporters who will vote to keep her because they’re against this nonsense.
You raise a good point. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the recall effort (separate and apart from their feelings about Sawant), in a recall election, the voters are positioned as a “jury” of sorts, and are given the final say as to whether the official should be removed from office for the alleged misdeeds.
Majority? Let me help you here with what “majority” means.
2019 ELECTION FACTS:
74,772 active registered voters in District 3 as of Nov. 5, 2019.
44,446 ballots were returned
22,263 votes for Sawant
20,488 votes for Orion
30,326 didn’t vote
Now let’s do some basic math from grade school (I know math can be difficult at times):
74,772 – 22,263 = 52,509 did NOT vote for Sawant
Okay, here’s the fun part!! Let’s learn how to do percentages:
20,488 ÷ 74,772 = 27.40% (Voted for Orion)
22,263 ÷ 74,772 = 29.77% (Voted for Sawant)
52,509 ÷ 74,772 = 70.22% (Didn’t vote for Sawant)
According to Merriam-Webster:
Isn’t 70.22% greater than 29.77%? I thought so!
Amy, I bet that just blows your mind!!!
My job here is done. Have a nice day.
Or you know, you can look at it this way:
30,326 / 74,772 = 40.56% of D3 did not vote at all and therefore have no say in who they did or did not vote for.
Of the remaining 59.44% (44,446) that DID vote:
22,263 / 44,446 = 50.09% voted for Sawant
20,488 / 44,446 = 46.01% voted for Orion
20,488 + 22,263 = 42,711 votes for Sawant or Orion
44,446 total ballots – 42,711 votes for two candidates = 1,735 votes, or 3.9% for “other.”
Adding 1,735 “other votes” plus Orion’s 20,448 yields 49.91% that did not vote for Sawant.
I know understanding math can be hard, but 50.09% of votes yields a majority given it meets the very definition you quoted.
So… what was your point?
Wow….. seriously – you are actually advocating for disenfranchising 40% of D3 because they skipped a race on a ballot? It doesn’t work that way in this country. You don’t lose your right to vote for not having exercised it in the past.
And I disagree with your logic anyway – that 40% of D3 did not vote at all for city council is itself telling…. Given that voter turnout was extraordinarily high for the 2019 November general election – in the high 80’s to 90% (and I’d guess on the high end here in D3) that would mean around 30% of the voters turned in a ballot, but abstained completely from voting for city council, likely as they found that neither candidate was to their liking… it was a deliberate rejection of both candidates, we just don’t have a “none of the above” option that is counted… so it would indeed that would indicated that it’s actually a minority – just under 30% that voted her in.
correcting myself before anyone else can… the 2020 election was the record turnout one….. there’s still no excuse for advocating the disenfranchisement of 40% of the voters…
Nothing I said was in the ballpark of “disenfranchising 40% of the population.” Nowhere. And twisting my comment to suggest that I’m advocating or implying that one looses their right to vote for not voting is absurd.
Instead, I redid the math as presented in the comment above to show facts, not logic.
I’ll repeat: according to the original poster, in 2019, in D3, there were 74,772 registered voters. 44,446 ballots from those were returned and counted. The remaining, 40.56% did not turn in a ballot and therefore did not cast a vote. Because of this, they have no say in who was elected.
Of those who did vote, the majority (being defined as greater then 50%) voted for Sawant. Fact.
You can speculate why people didn’t vote and manipulate that 40% however you want to to fit your view, as shown by both your comment and the original comment I was replying to.
What pains me is that both you and the OP i was responding to are assuming why 30k+ people did not vote, manipulating data to fit whatever beliefs you have and flat out are rejecting the fact that the majority of voters using the data provided initially …. voted for Sawant.
The majority also didn’t vote for Orion either.
Actually it would appear that the largest portion of D3 likely rejected BOTH candidates for a non-vote….. had we been striving for a majority (or more than 50%) there would have been a runoff between Sawant and an empty chair.
Courts and Eastside money? At the end of the day, D3 voters will decide. How many times did we vote on the monorail and the viaduct? Voting and revoting is a long Seattle tradition!
The Recall Campaign’s strategy has always been to gun for a blatantly undemocratic special election when turnout is most disproportionately the richest voters. I’m glad they’ve been shamed into claiming they want a November election, when everyone will be aware and turnout will be highest – as everyone should want. Let’s hold them to it and defeat the right wing, minority electoral coup.
I in think describing an election (special or otherwise) as a “coup” you accidentally have shown your true colors.
You do understand that a recall cannot be legally put on an election ballot if the election hasn’t already been called for another reason….. it must be a “previously scheduled election”…
The ‘special’ elections that you like to talk about so much (Feb & April) are simply that in title… they are regularly scheduled elections that are on the calendar every year, they are termed ‘special’ because they are not the August primary or the November general election, but rather are intentionally set times to address things like office vacancies due to circumstances like resignations or deaths that may leave an office empty outside of the it’s normal election cycle.
Liberal all my life… Donated to Obama, Biden, Democratic Party, volunteered for Pete, 100% support the Recall Campaign.
We don’t need a self-grandstanding, over-the-top Socialist in D3. Ms. Sawant is free to take her revolution to Olympia or even Washington DC. I need a city council that cares to repair terrible roads, improve public transport, create more jobs and more housing, safeguard *everyone’s* safe (not only racial minorities and Homeless).
Sawant’s vote harvesting and same day voter registration machine is being oiled up! Can’t you just hear the engines of the buses lined up at the homeless camps, etc. Totally legal. In King County, you can declare your residence as a street corner or park and sign up to vote that day. Expect yet another “come-from-behind” victory in the days after the election. As she said last time, “wait and see.” And she came from 8% behind.
I don’t support the recall. That’s what regular elections are for. Nevertheless, Sawant has cried wolf and irresponsibly inflamed community tensions. Twice.
Hamza Warsame dies in fatal fall
* December 5, 2015: 16-year-old Somali-American student Hamza Warsame dies in fall from Capitol Hill apartment balcony.
* December 10, 2015: Sawant in her blog: “Some reports suggest he was beaten and thrown from the building in an Islamophobic attack by a fellow student…Why is the Muslim community being targeted?”
* May 10, 2016: Seattle Police investigation: Warsame’s fall at classmate’s apartment was accidental.
Shooting death of Lorenzo Anderson at CHOP
* June 20, 2020: 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson shot to death at Capitol Hill Organized Protest site.
* June 20, 2020: Sawant in her blog: “There are indications this may have been a right-wing attack… If this killing turns out to be a right-wing attack, President Trump bears direct responsibility.”
* August 5, 2020: Prosecutors file first degree murder charges against Marcel Long, who was caught on video chasing Anderson through CHOP with a gun as the teenager fled. Long is Black.
Voters in even “the city’s most progressive, farthest left-leaning neighborhoods” may be fed up with Sawant’s divisive opportunism.
Thanks for your reality check and these are great examples of Sawant’s grandstanding and divisiveness.
But, I don’t understand why anyone would oppose recalls in general…they are a part of our democratic process. Did you oppose impeaching Trump? (impeachment is basically the same thing as a recall).
Nothing she did came close to what he has done, and as long as there are electoral college and gerrymandered districts, this country doesn’t have a democratic process.
Still, Sawant’s making spurious and unsupported claims that play on ethnic and racial divisions is a very bad thing, don’t you agree?
Yes, I opposed impeaching Trump, not because I oppose impeachment per se but because the Democrats’ articles of impeachment were inadequate. There’s nothing undemocratic about recalls, but they seem rather superfluous given regular elections.