Efforts to recall Council of the District of Columbia member Charles Allen of Ward 6 have failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
There had been a surge of pessimism about Allen since the winter because homicides and carjackings spiked in his ward. The initiative was about 700 signatures short of its 6,225 goal, with organizers blaming the lack of a mobile app to collect names as allegedly required.
“With the aid of the required mobile application to collect petition signatures — a significantly easier process than the burdensome task of collecting signatures on paper — the committee would certainly have gathered far more than the requisite number of signatures and succeeded in placing the recall petition on the ballot,” Jennifer Squires, chairwoman of the Committee to Recall Charles Allen, argued in a letter to the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance, also requesting an investigation into why the app wasn’t provided.
A top D.C. Board of Elections official, Monica Holman Evans, denied there was anything in the law to carry out what the recall campaign is asking. The board had offered a mobile petition tool in 2022, but it discontinued it and is looking to build a different app. She nevertheless doubted it would have made a difference.
“So you’re still going through the exact same process on the streets, door to door with people, collecting signatures,” Evans said. “It’s not like you can send out a mass [electronic] communiqué to collect signatures.”
A ranked choice voting initiative made it on the ballot without a mobile app.
Allen told the Washington Post the “bad-faith recall effort has now failed by every measure.”
“Ultimately, the recall organizers failed to appreciate that Ward 6 residents are thoughtful people looking for real solutions to our toughest problems, and they don’t respond to the fear and division we see play out every day on the national stage,” Allen wrote. “My neighbors also know that real problem solvers roll up their sleeves, they lead boldly and by lifting others up, and they try to build community instead of dividing it. That’s the Ward 6 I’m proud to call home and I’m honored to have represented for a decade.”
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Allen has voted to cut the police budget by $15 million, supported changing the district’s criminal code, and backed legislation allowing 22- to 24-year-olds convicted of most crimes to be eligible for lenient sentencing. He was the chairman of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee until 2022.
The recall campaign raised $120,000 and had the support of D.C. Republicans, but it ran into a strong pro-Allen countercampaign. Allen echoed his supporters that critics calling for his replacement weren’t offering any solutions or alternative candidates.