A high-profile petition to recall George Gascon, Los Angeles County District Attorney, was found insufficient to qualify for a ballot. The organizers were unable to collect sufficient, valid petition signatures to place the proposal before voters, election officials said Monday.

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Los Angeles is the United States’ most populous county. It had  9,861,224 people as of January 1, 2022. Gascón, a progressive, was faulted for criminal justice reforms that critics said fueled lawlessness, which the top prosecutor disputed. The region has seen rising crime rates and smash-and-grab robberies. 

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Howevever, when it came to signatures, organizers failed to meet the requirement of nearly 570,000 valid ones. County officials found only about 520,000 fitting the criteria, which is well below the threshold. About 200,000 signatures turned in were disqualified. 

“The removal of George Gascon from office has never been a matter of if, but when,” the recall organizers told Fox News on Monday. 

This was the second attempt to qualify a recall election that could remove Gascón, after an initial one failed last year.

“Los Angeles’ criminal justice reform movement has prevailed because this is a community that prefers facts over misplaced fear,” Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance that promotes reforms, said in a statement.

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The failed attempt comes after San Francisco voters in June recalled another prominent California criminal justice reformer, District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Gascón, a former San Francisco police chief who then became DA in that city, won office in Los Angeles in November 2020 as part of a wave of progressive prosecutors elected nationwide.

He ran on a criminal justice reform platform after a summer of unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Los Angeles is a heavily Democratic city known for its progressive politics, but Gascón faced criticism from business leaders and prosecutors in his own office for policies that they saw as ineffective to stem rising crime. His moves to sharply restrict when prosecutors can try juveniles as adults or seek life sentences angered victims-rights groups.