Bannock County recall effort stalled until Spring, still accepting signatures

The effort to recall the Bannock County assessor and commissioners is wrapping up the petition drive.

Claudia Ortega, the woman behind the effort, said signatures will be collected for another two weeks.

Originally, the plan was to turn in the signatures by Monday, Sept. 16, but due to low voter turnout rates in midterm elections, Ortega is delaying the vote.

Instead, the signatures will be turned in to the elections’ office in time for the issue to possibly be on the spring ballot.

“We made a strategic decision, and we decided we would keep collecting signatures until the end of this month, turn them in on October 1 and get them on the March ballot,” Ortega said.

The petition needs about 9,100 valid signatures to put the issue to a vote. Ortega doesn’t know the exact number she has now, but says it’s in the thousands.