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A citizen’s petition that would establish a means of recalling elected officials has been submitted for Sudbury’s Special Town Meeting on May 20 (page 41). According to Ballotopedia, “A recall election is the process by which citizens may remove elected officials from office before the expiration of their terms.”
The Special Town Meeting was called in response to a separate petition calling for a vote of no confidence in the current Sudbury School Committee (SPS). The recall petition is one of three additional citizen’s petitions that have since been submitted for the Special Town Meeting according to the draft warrant in the latest Select Board meeting packet.
The recall petition would establish a common two-step process for triggering a recall election. First is a requirement for 250 signatures on an affidavit of intent. If that is certified, the clock starts ticking for the second step where a recall petition needs to get signatures from 10% of Sudbury’s registered voters within 28 days.
That 10% threshold is an important consideration. More than double that amount, 23.83% of registered voters, turned out for Sudbury’s Annual Town Election in March. For context, the Town of Acton has a lower threshold for recall affidavit signatures at just 25 voters. However, Acton requires twice as many (20%) voters to sign the petition in the second step (pages 4 and 5 here). Maynard also requires 20%. (Page 9)
Some Massachusetts towns set the petition signature threshold as low as 10% and others set it at 15%. There’s significant variation across Towns that have a recall provision in their charters.
The threshold for signatures on the petition and the timeline for gathering those signatures are two key considerations in recall elections. If the signature threshold is too high or the time to gather signatures too short, it makes the recall provision difficult to utilize. If the signature threshold is too low and the time to gather signatures excessively long, it could allow small groups of residents or special interests to disrupt the electoral process.
As the petition is currently drafted, the method of recall election includes a simultaneous successor election. Voters would vote on whether or not to recall an elected official and, in the same election, vote for their preferred candidate to replace the official being recalled. If the recall passes, the highest vote-getter takes over the seat. Simultaneous successor elections are quite common in Massachusetts Towns that have recalls.
California voters will vote later this year on a constitutional amendment to eliminate simultaneous successor elections. Proponents of the amendment have called simultaneous successor elections “undemocratic,” noting that the successor need only win a plurality of votes, effectively allowing a minority to remove and replace officials elected by a majority with officials elected by a simple plurality.
One of the cited benefits of simultaneous successor elections is that municipalities and taxpayers don’t have to bear the expense of two additional, unplanned elections. Nearby Westwood has simultaneous successor elections in its recall provisions (Chapter 4, Section 8 here), but its Charter has considerable differences from what is proposed in the Sudbury petition.
Westwood requires that “not more than 33 1/3 per cent of the total number shall be from any 1 precinct” in both the affidavit stage and the petition stage. Westwood also requires at least 15% of registered voters to sign the petition, and provides 20 days for signature gathering, whereas the Sudbury proposal is for 28 days.
Notably, Westwood requires the recall to pass at the ballot by a two-thirds majority. The Sudbury petition requires a simple majority to recall an elected official.
The Stow Town Charter (Page 9) also requires 15% of registered voters to sign during the petition stage, but it raises the bar on turnout and quantum of vote during the recall election:
“The proposition for the recall shall fail unless greater than twenty-five percent of the voters cast ballots at the election. If at least two-thirds of the votes cast upon the question of recall is in the affirmative, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared elected. If less than two-thirds of the votes cast is in the affirmative, the ballots for candidates need not be counted.”
(Page 9)
For a broader review of recall considerations, this overview from UMass Boston provides a concise summary.
Next Steps
If passed at the Special Town Meeting on May 20, the petition (called a “Home Rule Petition”) would have to make it through the Attorney General’s office, the State legislature, and be signed by the Governor to go into effect.
The Select Board is scheduled to discuss the Special Town Meeting and the warrant during their Tuesday, April 28 meeting. (Information here.)