Recall election
[1] Even where they are legally available, recall elections are only commonly held in a small number of countries including Peru, Ecuador, and Japan.
[2] They are considered by groups such as ACE Electoral Knowledge Network as the most rarely used form of direct democracy.
The recall referendum arrived in Latin America shortly after its introduction at the US subnational level, in 1923 and 1933, to Cordoba and Entre Ríos provinces, respectively, both in Argentina.
There, recall exists at the provincial level in Chaco (introduced in 1957), Chubut (1994), Córdoba (1923, 1987), Corrientes (1960), La Rioja (1986), Rio Negro (1988), Santiago del Estero and Tierra del Fuego (1991); other provinces include it for their municipalities, namely, Entre Ríos (1933), Neuquén (1957), Misiones (1958), San Juan (1986), San Luis (1987).
A by-election is called by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia as soon as possible to fill the vacant seat.
[clarification needed] It obliges candidates running for office to register a government plan which is later on considered to activate the recall.
[clarification needed] Since the time the mechanism was regulated by Law 134 in 1994, until 2015, 161 attempts led 41 referendums and none of them succeeded since the threshold of participation was not reached.
The change in the regulation, also quickening the registration of promoters, led to a considerable increase in the number of attempts.
[17] According to its constitution, Cuba is a socialist republic in which all members of representative bodies of state power are subject to recall by the masses.
Although allowable according to law, in practice the right of recall was never used in any soviet system of government, except for an attempt in Hungary in 1989.
The revocation request must be supported by a number not less than ten percent of people registered in the corresponding electoral registry.
In the case of the President of the Republic, the support of a number not less than fifteen percent of those registered in the electoral registry will be required.Mayors may be recalled in 11 out of the 16 states of Germany.
In a majority of these states recall elections are indirect, meaning that they only take place after a motion of no confidence from the municipal council of the city.
[23][24] Recall regulations were introduced in Peru by the Democratic Constituent Congress (Congreso Constituyente Democrático) which drafted a new constitution after Alberto Fujimori's autogolpe in 1992.
Elected officials from provincial governors to the barangay (village) councilors are potentially subject to recall.
While recalls are not provided for at the federal level in Switzerland, six cantons allow them:[27][28] The possibility of recall referendums (together with the popular election of executives, the initiative and the legislative referendum) was introduced into several cantonal constitutions after the 1860s in the course of a broad movement for democratic reform.
The instrument has never been of any practical importance—the few attempts at recall so far have failed, usually because the required number of signatures was not collected—and it was abolished in the course of constitutional revisions in Aargau (1980), Baselland (1984) and Lucerne (2007).
It is the duty of every deputy to report to his electors on his work and on the work of the Soviet of Working People's Deputies, and he is liable to be recalled at any time in the manner established by law upon decision of a majority of the electors.As a principle of soviet democracy, similar recall provisions have been widely copied in the constitutions of other communist countries, including those of Cuba, China, Vietnam, North Korea, and countries in the Eastern Bloc.
[29] Although allowable according to law, in practice the right of recall was never used in any soviet system of government, except for an attempt in Hungary in 1989.
[32] In December 2024, the Legislative Yuan approved changes requiring that initiators and signatories of recall petitions provide photocopies of their national identification cards.
During the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation stipulated that state legislatures might recall delegates from the Continental Congress.
The Virginia Plan, issued at the outset of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, proposed to pair recall with rotation in office and to apply these dual principles to the lower house of the national legislature.
Additionally, in 1988, a recall was approved against Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona,[39] but he was impeached and convicted before it got on the ballot.
[40] In Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Rhode Island, and Washington, specific grounds are required for a recall.
[43] Of recall elections, 52 were for city council, 30 were for mayor, 17 were for school board, 11 were for state legislators, and one was for a prosecuting attorney (York County, Nebraska).
