California’s system for recalling politicians has an enormous flaw: It creates the possibility that an elected official could be thrown out of office and replaced by someone voters like even less.
This didn’t happen last year, when 62% of voters said “no” to recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom, keeping him in office and sending the 46 people who ran to replace him back to their talk radio studios, YouTube channels, reality TV shows, pink Corvettes and losing legislative agendas.
But it could have. Because while it takes a majority vote to win the yes/no recall question, it takes only a plurality to win the who-should-be-the-replacement question. If, hypothetically, 49% of voters had said “no” to the recall, Newsom would have been recalled and replaced by whoever received the most votes — even if that person received only, say, 40% of the votes.
