recall election

recall election, method of election in which voters can oust elected officials before their official terms have ended.

Like most populist innovations, the practice of recalling officeholders was an attempt to minimize the influence of political parties on representatives. Widely adopted in the United States, the recall was originally designed to ensure that elected officials would act in the interests of their constituencies rather than in the interests of their political parties or according to their own consciences. The actual instrument of recall is usually a letter of resignation signed by the elected representative before assuming office. During the term of office, the letter can be evoked by a quorum of constituents if the representative’s performance fails to meet their expectations.

In the United States the recall has been used successfully against various types of officials, including judges, mayors, and even state governors. Although in practice the recall is not used extensively, even in jurisdictions where it is provided for constitutionally, it has been used to remove governors in North Dakota (1921) and California (2003). Following a bitter partisan fight between Democrats and Republicans over the right of public employees to bargain collectively, Wisconsin experienced in 2011 the single largest recall attempt in U.S. history: six Republicans and three Democrats in the 33-member state senate faced a recall vote, though only two senators—both Republicans—were defeated. Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker himself faced a recall election in 2012, which he won. In 2018 California state senator Josh Newman, a Democrat, lost his recall election.

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election: Recall elections