Organizers of Alameda Co. DA Pamela Price recall campaign welcome manual count of signatures

SAN FRANCISCO -- Organizers of a campaign to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price said Friday that they welcome a manual count of signatures gathered to get the recall on the ballot after the county registrar of voters announced that a random sampling of the signatures did not meet its criteria.

Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis announced Thursday that the results of a random sampling of the 123,374 signatures submitted in a petition on March 4 by the group Save Alameda For Everyone "are not sufficient to determine whether the signature threshold to call for a recall election has been met."

RELATED: Campaign to recall Alameda County DA Pamela Price submits signatures

The recall effort needs 73,195 signatures to qualify for the ballot. State law mandates that the county registrar conduct a manual count when a random sampling doesn't produce a "statistically confident determination of the sufficiency of the petition," Dupuis said in a news release.

The registrar said it was in the best interest of both Price and the recall proponents to ensure the signatures are counted reliably.

MORE: 'Attack on our democracy': Alameda County DA launches campaign to fight recall

Brenda Grisham and Carl Chan with the Save Alameda For Everyone group said in a statement Friday that they welcome the registrar's manual count. The recall organizers have accused Price of being soft on crime since taking office as district attorney in January 2023.

"In this way, it further protects the recall's petition gathering process from any legal challenges," they said.

The campaign opposing the recall of Price has alleged that there were deceptive and fraudulent efforts by organizers to get enough signatures to get the recall on the ballot and said Thursday they too welcomed the manual count.

"After all that noise, they've failed their first test. We'll wait to crack up the Guinness until the votes are manually counted but things are looking good," said Protect the Win spokesperson William Fitzgerald. "Their whole campaign is nothing but a hack job trying to oust a democratically elected DA."

Video in the player above is from a previous report.

If you're on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live