A recall campaign against Bay Area state Sen. Aisha Wahab died yesterday because of a petition error that generated thousands of invalid signatures, advocates said.
The campaign needed at least 42,802 signatures by May 23 to be placed on the ballot, according to California Secretary of State documents that campaign proponents said they had. But many of the petitions the state distributed were missing a signature line for signature collectors, leading to missing signatures, a crucial component for petitions to be valid.
Ritesh Tandon, director of the recall campaign and former candidate for Congressional District 17 in the March primary, said the state’s mistake was the final blow of the campaign, invalidating about 30,000 signatures of the more than 45,000 he said were collected. gathered. To certify the affected petitions, the Secretary of State told the campaign that he would have to find the approximately 10,000 people who helped collect the signatures and ask them to sign the petition, which Tandon said was extremely difficult.
The campaign tried to get those signatures from those people, but ultimately gave up between March and April, Tandon said.
“I feel very sad because this withdrawal was actually done by ordinary people when we were collecting signatures,” he told San José Spotlight. “We were all volunteers and everything was going very well.”
Tandon, while working with a campaign professional, was told that the recall petitions were missing a signature line that needed to be signed by individual collectors. The campaign notified the Secretary of State last February that the signature line was missing. The state acknowledged it was notified about the issue, but denied the campaign an extension of the deadline to collect those signatures or waive the signature-gatherer requirement, Tandon said.
A spokesman for the secretary of state said proponents were notified on Feb. 20 that they would have to get signature gatherers to sign at the end of the petition, even though Tandon said there was no signature line.
The government agency did not address how the error occurred.
Recall efforts against Wahab – who represents District 10, including parts of Santa Clara and Alameda counties – began last December and were driven largely by opposition to Senate Bill 403, the first of its kind on caste discrimination. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed that bill last October.
The campaign has since expanded to include opposition to other efforts Wahab has introduced, including SB 460 that would have prohibited landlords from asking about a potential tenant’s criminal history, but failed in February, according to a lawmaker.
Wahab said he has tried unsuccessfully to recall her several times this campaign, which he called disappointing.
“I think it’s a waste of time, money and effort and a distraction from the legitimate issues that we are genuinely focused on (to) help Californians,” he told San José Spotlight. “The reality is we all have a job to do and you may not be happy with everything that’s happened based on that caste civil rights bill, but at some point we have to move on.”
Wahab, a Fremont native, was elected in 2022 as the first Muslim Afghan-American elected to the state legislature. Wahab previously served on the Hayward City Council.
Tandon, who ran for the 17th Congressional District in 2020 and 2022, said he will not abandon recall efforts. He already plans to lead another recall effort and said this time he will do it with the help of professionals to avoid problems.
He said Wahab does not represent the people and will continue to demand his removal.
“Do your job. If the people have trusted you, then be a representative of the people and work for them, not for special interests,” he said.
Contact Annalize Freimarck at [email protected] or continue @analize_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter.
