Carollo volunteers canvass district, asking signers of recall petition to recant
In July, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo filed a lawsuit to try to kill the recall effort against him. Now, he’s taking that fight to the streets.
Volunteers have been canvassing in Carollo’s District 3 in recent days, going to the homes of residents who signed the petition earlier this year to remove Carollo from office and asking if they want to sign a new form recanting their original signature.
Carollo and his attorney, Ben Kuehne, confirmed Wednesday that an undisclosed number of residents have signed forms expressing their desire to be removed from the recall petition. In his lawsuit, Carollo claimed that the recall organizers misled and lied to some of the 1,941 voters who signed petition forms, arguing in part that Spanish speakers were confused by a document written only in English.
“Many people were lied to and told that this was for something other than to recall me,” Carollo told the Miami Herald. “Dozens of people are telling us that they didn’t sign [any] recall against me. They voted for me, they like me, but their names appear [on the petition].”
Carollo added: “If these people wanted me out of office so badly, they’re not gonna change their mind and take their name off the petition.”
State law allows elected officials facing recall campaigns to “get people to change their mind” after the initial signature collection period, said J.C. Planas, an attorney for the recall effort. But typically, Planas said, the maximum window to do so is 30 days, which is the amount of time the county elections department has to verify the petitions after they’re submitted.
In Carollo’s case, the petitions are still held by the Miami city clerk, and have yet to be turned over to the county as litigation drags on. The clerk, Todd Hannon, said in March that he received physical copies of the petitions too late and rejected them, prompting a lawsuit by the recall team. Florida’s Supreme Court and Third District Court of Appeals have recently denied requests by Carollo to prevent the recall process from moving forward, but Carollo and the recall group continue to spar over various issues in circuit court.
That has given Carollo additional time to ask people to take back their petition signatures, Planas said.
“He created a loophole,” Planas said. “These affidavits should be discarded.”
Planas and others involved in the recall effort also accused Carollo of using his power to try to intimidate residents into changing their stance. They said multiple people contacted them after volunteers apparently working for Carollo came to their homes earlier this week asking if they would sign a form saying they wanted Carollo to keep his commission post.
“People have reached out to us alarmed and fearful,” said Juan Cuba, an activist and former Miami-Dade Democratic Party chairman. “They won’t even speak publicly about it.”
If the recall petition reaches the county elections department, Carollo would need at least 365 signatures to be nullified, for whatever reason, to prevent the effort from having the support it needs from 5% of the district’s registered voters to move forward.
Otherwise, if the requisite number of signatures are verified, the process will move to a second round of signature-gathering. This time, the recall campaign would need to collect petitions from 15% of District 3’s voters, or 4,730 signatures, and Carollo would have the right to include a 200-word statement defending himself on the petition form.
Attorneys for the recall effort suggested the recent canvassing by Carollo volunteers could be part of an attempt to sway residents at that second stage.
“We knew it was only a matter of time before Carollo started a campaign of intimidation,” said David Winker, an attorney for the recall group. “Given his track record, you can’t blame residents who are getting a knock on the door from Carollo’s people [for] signing whatever is put in front of them.”
Winker said intimidation tactics by Carollo were “exactly what inspired the recall in the first place.” The petition focused on controversies that have marked Carollo’s term since he was elected in 2017, including accusations that he pushed the city’s code enforcement department to target properties owned by Little Havana businessman Bill Fuller, including the Ball & Chain nightclub.
Carollo obtained copies of the petitions — which include signers’ names and addresses — through a public records request, the Miami city clerk said Wednesday.
The former Miami mayor has insisted that voters support him, and that the recall effort is being driven by lawyers and activists who don’t live in his district. The real story, he said, is “how people who had nothing to do with the city are trying to recall an elected official.”
“If this happens to me, it could happen to anyone,” he said.
Carollo is up for re-election in 2021.
Herald staff writer Joey Flechas contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
