September 04, 2019 01:37 PM UTC

"Official" Polis Recall Celebrates Impending Failure Of Polis Recall

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• by: Colorado Pols

If you don’t have the pleasure of being on the “inside” of the 41,000-strong private Facebook group ostensibly devoted to the recall of Gov. Jared Polis–note that the 41,000 did not all join this group for that purpose, since the group has been around threatening the same fate for some years to Gov. Polis’ predecessor–you have to rely on windows into their peculiar little world such our occasional updates.

Readers will recall that the “Official” Recall Polis group distanced themselves from the petition campaign that comes to a close at the end of this week, suggesting that the task was so disproportionate to the resources available that the faction plowing ahead must be supported by Polis himself. And as that fateful deadline approaches, “ORCGJP” chairwoman Juli-Andra Fuentes wants you to know it was all one giant scammy scam-scam just like she told you:

Recalling a statewide official is an immense, difficult and expensive task as putting the recall issue on the ballot requires 631,266 valid signatures, and with a 30% rejection rate, means collecting over 900,000 signatures. Further, with only 60 days to conduct the recall (11,000 signatures a day), means that a statewide governor recall has much less time allotted than a statewide ballot initiative, which only requires about 100,000 valid signatures over 180-day period; still even ballot initiatives often fail.

The recall petition currently being distributed has not even come close to having the resources necessary to get on the ballot. Merely printing petition sections costs roughly $65,000 and those numbers generously assume $5 per section and 70 signature lines per section. According to the most recent campaign finance reports, Dismiss Polis, Resist Polis and Recall Et ALL combined, did not have enough to even cover printing costs and printing is only the first step. The best and most successful volunteer efforts have collected about 40,000 signatures over a six-month timeframe; with only approximately 3,000 Facebook followers, it would be unrealistic to expect Dismiss, Resist and Et ALL to collect 11,000+ signatures a day. Paid signature collectors cost between $3 to $15 a signature so, between that the cost of printing, the math is simple…

The organizers of Dismiss Polis, Resist Polis and Recall Et All are not going to get a recall on the ballot, and it is our belief that was by design. The undertaking of a project of this magnitude needed a tremendous amount of planning and resources for it to be successfully executed. As we all know, if elections have consequences then obviously so do recalls. The consequence of them filing a petition prematurely is they have likely ruined any chance to recall the governor at this time. [Pols emphasis]

Last week, 9NEWS reported that the “Official” Recall Polis campaign divested itself of a large percentage of its funds by writing a $29,000 check to Trump For Colorado. As the statement above indicates this is a committee winding down its operations, not planning to rise again from the ashes of what everyone expects will be a failed attempt to recall Gov. Polis come close of business Friday. As for the stillborn petition drive, we’ve heard rumors that they are “six digits short” of the needed 631,000 signatures to meet the minimum threshold–let alone the hundreds of thousands of additional signatures needed to cover the always-hefty percentage of invalid signers.

They’ll try to spin whatever they get, of course, but what will be no surprise is that their stated goal of 900,000 was a fool’s errand. We’ll be working backward from that figure to calculate just how egregiously this campaign has wasted all of our valuable time.