Arpaio recall effort fails to collect needed signatures

May 30, 2013

Opponents of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio have failed in their bid to recall him. The deadline to collect the necessary signatures passed Thursday afternoon.

Organizers behind the recall effort aren’t saying how many signatures they did collect, but they told elections officials it fell short of the more than 335,000 needed. Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne says the group did not submit any signatures to her office.

“They do not have to turn them in if they did not get sufficient,” she said, “and so the committee is in possession of the petitions at this point.”

Osborne says the signatures cannot be used in any future recall campaigns. In place of the signatures, the committee says it turned in 15,000 voter registration cards to the elections board.