Group fails in bid to recall Ariz. sheriff
By JACQUES BILLEAUD | Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) ? A campaign to force a recall election against the
polarizing sheriff of metropolitan Phoenix has failed.
Recall organizers said Thursday that they couldn't collect enough voter
signatures to bring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the ballot
again.
Organizers of the recall effort needed to turn in more than 335,000
valid voter signatures by 5 p.m. Thursday to force a recall election.
"It is a sad day," recall campaign manager Lilia Alvarez said. "It is a
disappointment."
Recall organizers won't reveal the number of signatures they gathered.
In their last update, given five weeks ago, organizers said they had
gathered 200,000 signatures.
"The count at this point doesn't matter," Alvarez said in deciding not
to reveal the number of signatures gathered.
Arpaio issued a statement suggesting that recall organizers aren't
revealing the number of signatures they gathered because they are
embarrassed by the level of their failure. "This effort failed because
the good people of Maricopa County, whom I'm honored to serve, rejected
the wrong-headed idea of overturning an election," Arpaio said.
Arpaio supporters say the sheriff won re-election in November fair and
square and that recall organizers shouldn't have been allowed to contest
the election simply because they didn't like the outcome.
The recall effort began just weeks after the 80-year-old Republican
sheriff started his sixth term in January. His November re-election race
marked the second closest contest in his 20-year political career. He
beat the closest candidate by 6 percentage points.
Joshua Spivak, a recall expert and senior fellow at Wagner College in
New York, said the Arpaio recall effort suffered from too little
fundraising, having to collect an unusually high number of voter
signatures for a county race and not having an alternative candidate
lined up to run against Arpaio. "They are running against Joe Arpaio,"
Spivak said. "But who are they electing?"
Arpaio critics had argued that the sheriff should be booted because his
office has failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crimes
cases, has cost the county $25 million in legal settlements over
treatment in county jails and his office was found by a federal judge to
have systematically racially profiled Latinos in his signature
immigration patrols. Critics say the sheriff is more focused on getting
publicity for himself than protecting the people.
Recall organizers had hoped that last week's racial profiling ruling
would pump new life into their cause. Supporters were camped outside a
county building for more than four days in their final push.
"I wish from the bottom of my heart that this ruling would have come out
a month earlier. Had this ruling come out a month earlier, who knows how
many signatures we would have gotten," Democratic state Rep. Martin
Quezada of Avondale, a supporter of the Arpaio recall effort, said.
In the hours before the recall petitions were due, a trickle of people
dropped by three tents set up by recall organizers outside the county
building to sign petitions. Clipboard-wielding volunteers hit up people
walking on the sidewalk for signatures and wore T-shirts that said,
"Petition Posse," a play on Arpaio's posses whose volunteer members
assist sheriff's deputies in some of their duties.
In the past, the sheriff has apologized for the bungled sex-crimes
investigations and said his office has moved to clear up the cases and
taken steps to prevent a repeat of the problem. He also has vigorously
denied allegations that his deputies racially profiled people in traffic
patrols targeting immigrants who aren't authorized to be in the country.
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