Seven notices of intent to circulate a recall petition have been filed with the City Clerk’s Office over the past decade – none of which have led to a ballot measure for voters to decide whether to remove an elected city official from office.
The recall petition process allows qualified voters to try to remove any city elected official from office, within certain parameters.
The most recent effort is against Northeast District 4 city Rep. Cynthia Boyar Trejo, filed June 17 by Joshua Dagda. The petition cites her vote against an initiative that could have ended the controversial incentive agreement between the city and Meta Platforms Inc. for a data center in her district as the reason for the attempted recall.
The process seems fairly simple: file a formal notice of intent at City Hall, gather signatures within 60 days and submit it for the recall measure to appear on the ballot at the next election – in this case the Nov. 3 general election.
The positions now held by city reps. Chris Canales in District 8, Alejandra Chávez in District 1, Art Fierro in District 6 and Ivan Niño in District 5 will be on the November ballot as those four-year terms end in January. Chávez and Niño were elected in December 2024 to fill unexpired terms vacated by Brian Kennedy and Isabel Salcido, respectively, who resigned their seats to unsuccessfully run for mayor.
Boyar Trejo, who is serving her first term, was elected in the Dec. 14, 2024, runoff election. Her term is set to expire in January 2029.
Prior notices of intent to recall were filed against former city Reps. Cortney Niland in 2012 and 2016; Joe Molinar and Cassandra Hernandez in 2023; and Canales and Chávez in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The notice against Chávez was withdrawn. A notice of intent was also filed against former Mayor Dee Margo in 2018.
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So, what does it take to successfully recall – or remove – a sitting elected official from city office?
Here is how the process works:
Who can be recalled?
Any elected officer of the city – city representatives, mayors, municipal court judges and municipal court of appeals judges – may be removed from office through the recall process unless they have only been in office for six months, or if they are in the final year of their term.
The other exception is if the elected official was already in a recall election and was not removed from office. In that case, a separate recall election may be attempted six months after the unsuccessful one, according to the City Charter.
Who can file a recall petition?
Any registered voter in the city of El Paso who can vote for a successor in a city election may file a recall petition. In the case of recall petitions against an El Paso mayor, any registered voter in the city can file a petition. But in the case of city representatives, only a registered voter who lives within the boundary of that city representative district may file a petition.
What happens first?
The first step toward recalling an elected official is filing a formal notice of intent, a document stating you plan to circulate a petition for recall, at the City Clerk’s Office. The formal notice must include the date, the elected official’s name, the reason for the recall effort and the organizer’s name and contact information.
Why can’t I just begin collecting signatures before that?
The filing of the notice sets off the 60-day time limit the organizer has to collect the signatures required to submit for a recall election to be considered. Signatures on the petition must have the date of the day they were collected.
Can anyone sign the petition?
No. Only registered voters who live within the district of the city representative that is being recalled may sign the petition to be considered a valid and qualified voter. If a recall petition is filed against the mayor, then any registered voter in the city may sign the recall petition.
In the case of Boyar Trejo, only registered voters who live in District 4 will be counted as valid signatures during the city clerk’s verification process.
The individual collecting the signatures must also read the reason for the recall to each individual in either English or Spanish before they sign the petition. The signer must also provide name, address, voter identification number, date of the signature. Phone numbers and dates of birth are optional.
How many people need to sign the petition?
Bring out your calculator.
The city will not advise petitioners on how many signatures they need to collect, city spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta said in an emailed response to El Paso Matters.
The City Charter states that valid signatures equal to at least 20% of the total number of votes cast in the election of the officer whose recall is sought are required. The number of votes in a runoff election cannot be used for the calculation.
In the case of Boyar Trejo, who was elected in a December runoff, the city requires the 20% be calculated based on the November 2024 general election voter turnout in her district. That race had a total voter turnout of 21,162 – therefore at least 4,232 valid signatures must be collected by Aug. 16.
What happens after the signatures are collected?
Should the petitioner collect the required amount of signatures, the City Clerk’s Office must then verify them. If the signatures are valid, the City Council would have to order the recall measure be placed on the next permitted election, the recall ordinance states.
If the elected official that is the subject of a recall resigns, no recall election will be held.
How much would a recall election cost taxpayers?
It is unclear how much it would cost taxpayers to add a recall election to an already scheduled election.
“Because no recall petition in recent history has resulted in a recall election, there are no historical recall election costs. The cost to the taxpayer of any future recall election would depend on several factors, including timing and whether costs are shared with other entities,” Cruz-Acosta said.
The post How city of El Paso recall elections work – and which elected officials voters can try to remove appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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