One week remains for the Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters to certify the signatures on the petition to recall Mayor LaToya Cantrell. As next Wednesday's deadline approaches, what's next?
Mayor Cantrell is banking on a lawsuit challenging the Secretary of State's decision to remove voters from the active roll to help her survive the recall effort. One lawyer thinks she has a fighting chance.
"That's going to be a pretty quick determination as to whether or not you get to take 25,000 votes off the top," Scott Bickford told WWL's Dave Cohen. "I think that the people pushing the petition have created so many objections for the mayor that I don't see how this recall goes forward in its present state, particularly with the 25,000 votes that the Secretary of State has decided to take off. I don't see how the Secretary of State has the authority under the law to do that.
"I think the mayor has been holding back on this because it's obviously expensive to go forward, but they may not have enough signatures to begin with," Bickford added.
Bickford says that if the court does throw out the agreement between the NoLaToya Campaign and the Secretary of State's Office, it would most likely would lead to further legal challenges by both parties.
"That may bring us back to the original number, and there may be further objections after that," Bickford said.
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