The Committee to Hold Jack Evans Accountable is pleased that Councilmember Jack Evans finally submitted his resignation on January 7, 2020. Throughout the entire campaign, the committee had a standing offer to end the petitioning and close down the committee if Councilmember Evans resigned or made a public statement indicating that he would not seek reelection. He never did. In the end, it was the pressure from his fellow councilmembers that nearly resulted in him becoming the first councilmember to be expelled from the DC Council that instigated his resignation.
The Committee to Hold Jack Evans Accountable would like to thank the thousands of Ward 2 voters who signed the recall petition, the dozens of campaign volunteers from across the region, and the DC Councilmembers who voted to recommend the expulsion of their colleague. Together we have worked to help restore the integrity to the DC Council.
Altogether we collected 4,333 valid signatures from Ward 2 voters. While the 10% threshold we needed to trigger the recall election was 4,949 signatures, we believe that we achieved more than 10% because the DC Board of Elections’ voter rolls are wildly inaccurate. With over 7,000 registered voters in Ward 2 who have not cast a ballot in Ward 2 since November 2012, we believe our campaign was hurt by having thousands of inactive voters present on the voter rolls. The remedy is to not remove these voters from the rolls, but to change the regulations so that inactive voters are not counted against the total number of signatures a campaign is required to collect.
The Special Election to fill the vacancy is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16, 2020. The date of the special election is two weeks after the District of Columbia’s Primary Election, on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. For those who want to ensure Ward 2 is lead by the best person possible, we encourage you to volunteer with one of the campaigns and/or donate money. May the most qualified candidate lead Ward 2!