The group trying to boot Mayor Jim Suttle out of office has gathered about 37,000 signatures, The World-Herald has learned.
The signatures still need to be validated.
Organizers of the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee face a 5 p.m. Friday deadline to turn in the signatures required to force a recall election. The group had 30 days to gather the required 26,643 signatures and has used both volunteer and paid petition circulators to try to secure them.
Jeremy Aspen, a spokesman and co-chairman of the group, said Thursday that organizers would announce how many signatures they had collected once they handed them over to the Douglas County Election Commission. Organizers were expected to deliver the signatures Friday afternoon.
Recall opponents were skeptical that the Suttle Recall Committee had obtained enough valid signatures.
“They have so many invalid signatures, it's a joke,” Noelle Obermeyer, co-treasurer of Forward Omaha, a group fighting the recall attempt, said Thursday. “I have a very good feeling that tomorrow is going to be a victory day for us.”
The recall group asked its circulators to turn in their petitions by late Thursday. However, organizers said they wouldn't turn away anyone who wanted to sign as late as Friday morning.
In recent days, the recall group has stepped up its efforts. Petition circulators have been seen all over Omaha, including along Dodge Street, in the Elkhorn business district, in city parks and in the parking lots of grocery stores.
Last month the group filed a recall affidavit against Suttle, citing “excessive taxes, broken promises and union deals that cost taxpayers millions” as reasons for the effort. The home page of the group's website said Thursday — in large type — “We need signatures.”
“We don't know how many we have yet,” Aspen said.
At the same time, election officials were gearing up for a hectic two weeks of verifying petition signatures.
Election Commissioner Dave Phipps said Thursday that 10 temporary staffers and 10 regular employees will pore over the petition signatures from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day — including weekends and possibly on Thanksgiving Day — until Dec. 4. That's the deadline for election officials to announce whether the recall effort had succeeded.
Phipps doubted that election staff would get through the petitions any sooner than that. “I am certain that it's going to take that long,” he said.
Phipps didn't provide an estimate of how much it will cost his office to validate recall signatures. The actual cost will depend on how much time is needed and how much of it will be overtime pay.
But assuming that all 20 workers are needed every day except Thanksgiving Day, it appears that Phipps could spend $35,000 to $60,000 extra based on the pay ranges he provided. That figure doesn't include regular pay for his office's full-time workers.
Election workers will review signatures to make sure the signers are registered Omaha voters.
Phipps said he will instruct his workers to accept petition signatures unless there's clear evidence that a signature is invalid. Signatures that could be accepted include ones without an address or a birth date.
On the other hand, an illegible or made-up name would be rejected, as would a signature from someone who lives outside Omaha, Phipps said.
He said court rulings in voters' favor have caused election officials to accept petition signatures if at all possible.
“I have to have absolute proof” that the signature is invalid, he said.
Aspen, of the recall group, said he expects his group to face a lawsuit by recall opponents if his group collects enough signatures to force a recall election.
The anti-recall group Forward Omaha has accused the recall committee of breaking rules by hiring out-of-state circulators and allowing residents from outside Omaha to sign the petitions.
Aspen has said the group's petition circulators are following the law on all fronts. He said organizers didn't hire any circulators from outside Nebraska, although it did pay out-of-state consultants to come to Omaha to train and assist circulators.
Obermeyer, of Forward Omaha, said Thursday that members of her group have been keeping an eye on circulators by writing down and sometimes videotaping suspected violations.
Asked about the possibility of a lawsuit, Obermeyer said her group will “use any and all efforts that we have to ensure that the recall effort doesn't go through.” She declined to elaborate.
World-Herald staff writer Paul Goodsell contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
402-444-3100, maggie.obrien@owh.com
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