Petitioners have faced harassment and harassment from community members and local officials as they rush to collect enough signatures to initiate a recall vote for Cochise County Superintendent Tom Crosby by the May 3 deadline. Some say they have experienced acts of intimidation.
Two incidents in the last month have forced the Commission to step up its efforts to get the last remaining signatures.
Recall Committee Tom Crosby, who organizes the recall effort, has collected just over half the signatures needed to move the recall forward since January. He has only two weeks left to collect the remaining votes.
The committee attributed the recall to Crosby’s actions last year.
Crosby wasn’t the only supervisor involved in these actions, but the recall centered around him.
Midterm election administrators clashed with petitioners
Last month, interim election chief and county recorder David Stevens confronted two petitioners in their 70s who were collecting signatures on a dirt lot adjacent to the Hereford Post Office. He claimed they were on federal land, thus violating state law and told them to leave. In an article published in the Sierra Vista Herald.
The two petitioners said they had obtained permission from the postmaster to collect signatures on the parcel, according to the article. They said they felt threatened and threatened by Stevens’ actions.
The couple also said they experienced other incidents of harassment from people who disagreed with the recall efforts.
Stevens is now at the center of a controversial move made by the county commission. voted for. The county is now facing lawsuits from the Attorney General over that vote.
Election changes stand up to the challenge:Cochise County to vote as planned after judge dismisses Attorney General’s case
The man screamed and ran after the petitioner.
In another incident, two Sierra Vista retirees went door-to-door collecting signatures for a recall effort. In one house, no one answered the door. As one of her investigators was about to leave, a man came out of her house, yelling at her to leave and chasing her down her street screaming.
One of the investigators told the Arizona Republic that she could not escape the man and felt threatened.
According to police reports, an off-duty officer told the man to leave him alone.
The Sierra Vista Police Department said it was legal to go door-to-door and ask for petitions to be signed.
The two petitioners involved in the second incident reiterated that they were some people, albeit a minority voice, in the community during these incidents. polite, they said.
Eric Schodolski of Sierra Vista, chairman of the recall committee, said these actions made the committee more pressing to gather signatures and educate the public about the recall.
With just a few weeks left, the commission has collected two-thirds of the signatures needed to start the recall election. Suchodolski told the Republic that weeks of bad weather had made it difficult for volunteers to go out to collect signatures. In a paper petition, the petitioner explained that they were going out in the snow, high winds, and rain.
Suchodolski noted that the recall effort is nonpartisan, with an equal number of Democrats, Republicans and independent voters in District 1 signing the petition.
What caused the recall work?
This year’s recall efforts began after Crosby and supervisor Peggy Judd voted for 100% of the county’s ballots to be hand-counted in the November general election. The act was deemed illegal and was stopped by Pima County Judge Casey McGinley.
After the election, the two supervisors refused to certify the election results and received a court order from the judge to do so. The vote to certify the election results was passed by a 2-0 vote, with Judd and supervisor Ann English voting for certification. Crosby did not attend the court-ordered meeting to prove the results.
Who is Tom Crosby?
Crosby is a former member of the Sierra Vista City Council and a former U.S. Border Patrol agent and pilot. He, along with Peggy Judd and Ann English, is made up of his three on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors.
Cochise County is a rural county located in the southeastern tip of Arizona, bordering Mexico.
