Is this a first? Massachusetts mayor recalled, re-elected on the same night
Here's one we haven't seen before: on Tuesday, Fall River, Massachusetts Mayor Jasiel Correia II was simultaneously recalled and elected to serve as mayor of the city. How'd it happen? According to The Herald News, Correia qualified to run as a candidate to be mayor if the recall vote was successful.
Here’s the short summary—in some cases when a recall election takes place, the voters are presented with two choices. First, the option to decide yes/no whether to recall the elected official. Then, at the same time, voters choose from a list of candidates as if it were a normal election. In recalls like this, the list of candidates only comes into effect if the elected official is in fact recalled.
Voters in Fall River placed a recall election on the ballot for Correia, who then simultaneously qualified to be a candidate as well.
On the first portion of the ballot, Correia was recalled with 7,829 votes cast in favor of the recall and 4,911 votes cast in opposition to the recall. The second portion of the ballot allowed voters to choose who should serve as mayor if the recall vote succeeded.
Correia won a plurality with 4,808 (35.4 percent) of the total votes cast. Runner-up Paul Coogan received 4,567 votes (33.6 percent), Joe Camara received 1,971 votes (14.5 percent), Kyle Riley received 1,460 votes (10.8 percent), and Erica Scott-Pacheo received 740 votes (5.5 percent).
Petitioners began the recall process after Correia was arrested on October 11, 2018, on 13 charges of wire and tax fraud related to his company SnoOwl. In a press conference following the indictment, Correia said he was innocent of the charges and that he would not resign from office. He said the voters of Fall River should let him continue to serve or recall him.
In most recall elections we cover, if an elected official is recalled, a different candidate wins the simultaneous election.
Since 2014, Ballotpedia has covered 1,119 recalls targeting 1,712 officials. Recall efforts against 422 officials made it to the ballot, with 253 officials (60 percent) being removed from office.
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