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2018 Georgia Code 21-4-8 | Car Wreck Lawyer

Link to State of Georgia Official Statute 2018 Georgia Code Annotated (sourced from legal.resource.org)
O.C.G.A. 21-4-8 Case Law from Google Scholar Amendments to OCGA 21-4-8

TITLE 21 ELECTIONS

Section 4. Recall of Public Officers, 21-4-1 through 21-4-21.

ARTICLE 15 MISCELLANEOUS OFFENSES

21-4-8. Recall petition - Electors eligible to sign; procedure for circulating; obtaining and verifying signatures; form for affidavit of circulator; change in signature and residence address.

  1. All signers of a single recall petition shall be electors who are registered and eligible to vote in the recall election and who reside in the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled. When a petition for the recall of a public official is circulated in more than one county, each sheet of the petition shall bear the name of the county in which it is circulated, and only electors of the designated county may sign such sheet. No recall petition shall be circulated or signed by any person in any location where alcoholic beverages are sold or served.
  2. Every elector signing a recall petition shall do so in the presence of the person circulating the petition, who is to execute the affidavit of verification on the reverse side of the petition form. At the time of signing, the elector shall sign his name, and such elector or the person circulating the petition shall print the name of the elector below the elector's signature and shall print or write in the appropriate spaces following the signature the elector's residence address, giving number and street or route and city, the name of the county, and the date on which the elector signed the petition. No notary public may sign the petition as an elector or serve as a circulator of any petition which he or she notarized. Any and all sheets of a recall petition that have the circulator's affidavit notarized by a notary public who also served as a circulator of one or more sheets of the recall petition or who signed one of the sheets of the petition as an elector shall be disqualified and rejected.
  3. If an elector is incapable of signing his or her own name, he or she may specifically request the circulator of the petition to sign and print his or her name and complete the information required on the petition sheet to accompany the signature; provided, however, that the circulator shall also sign his or her full name beside the printed name of such elector.
  4. The person before whom the electors signed the recall petition shall verify, in an affidavit subscribed and sworn to by him or her before a notary public, that each of the names on the petition form was signed in his or her presence on the date indicated and that in his or her belief each signer was an elector of the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled.

(e) The affidavit printed on the reverse side of each recall petition form shall be in the following form:

AFFIDAVIT OF CIRCULATOR

State of Georgia County of ______________ Under the penalty of a violation of Code Section 16-10-71 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to false swearing, punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or by imprisonment of not less than one nor more than five years, or both, I do depose and say that I am an elector registered to vote in the recall election herein petitioned for and that each petitioner signed or caused to be signed the foregoing petition in my presence on the date indicated; and I believe that each signer's name and residence address are correctly stated, and that each signer is an elector of the electoral district in which such recall election will be conducted, and that each signer has read, or was read, the required statements which are also set out on each petition. (Signature of affiant) ___________________________________________________ (Residence address) ______________________________________________________ (Number and street or route) ______________ (City) Subscribed and sworn to before me this ________ day of ________, ________. ________________ Notary public ________, Georgia My commission expires on the ______ day of ______________, ________.

An elector may change the way his or her signature and residence address appear on the recall petition at any time prior to the filing of the petition for verification by striking through his or her name and initialing the strike-through and re-signing the petition with his or her printed name corrected accordingly.

(Code 1981, §21-4-8, enacted by Ga. L. 1989, p. 1721, § 1; Ga. L. 1999, p. 21, § 1; Ga. L. 1999, p. 23, § 4.)

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Editor's notes.

- In light of the similarity of the provisions, cases decided prior to the 1989 revision of this chapter and under former Code 1933, § 89-1907 are included in the annotations for this Code section.

Legislative intent of this section was to make sure that only eligible electors' names appear on the recall petition. Segars v. Bramlett, 245 Ga. 386, 265 S.E.2d 279 (1980) (decided under former Code 1933, § 89-1907; see O.C.G.A. § 21-4-8).

Purpose of printing the elector's name on the recall petition is legibility; to identify the person signing the petition in the event that the signer's name cannot be deciphered from the signature. Segars v. Bramlett, 245 Ga. 386, 265 S.E.2d 279 (1980) (decided under former Code 1933, § 89-1907).

Solicitations of signatures in private shopping malls.

- Nothing in the Georgia Constitution or the Recall Act of 1989, O.C.G.A. § 21-4-1 et seq., either separately or together, establishes a right of private citizens to enter onto privately owned shopping malls to solicit signatures for a recall petition. Citizens for Ethical Gov't, Inc. v. Gwinnett Place Assoc., 260 Ga. 245, 392 S.E.2d 8 (1990).

Elector incapable of signing.

- The statute governing recall elections does not permit one person to sign any but his or her own name except as provided in former § 21-4-7(c) (see O.C.G.A. § 21-4-8) as to the requesting circulator of a petition to sign for an elector incapable of signing. Howell v. Tidwell, 258 Ga. 246, 368 S.E.2d 311 (1988) (decided under former § 21-4-7).

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Editor's notes.

- In light of the similarity of the provisions, opinions decided prior to the 1989 revision of this chapter and Ga. L. 1979, p. 1612 are included in the annotations for this Code section.

Electors eligible.

- Only voters in district now represented by officer in question may sign the petition for recall. 1979 Op. Att'y Gen. No. U79-20 (decided under Ga. L. 1979, p. 1612).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 63C Am. Jur. 2d, Public Officers and Employees, § 212.

C.J.S.

- 67 C.J.S., Officers and Public Employees, § 183.

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