The California Secretary of State announced Wednesday that the signatures gathered to force a recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom had passed the 1.5 million threshold, with just 43 signatures withdrawn during a 30-day reprieve period.

In a press statement, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber noted that she had sent a letter to the Department of Finance (link included):

California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. notified the Department of Finance (DOF) by letter today that county elections officials reported a total of 43 signatures have been withdrawn statewide from petitions to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, and that the remaining 1,719,900verified signatures still meet the threshold to initiate a recall election.

A sufficient number of verified recall signatures had previously been reached by recall proponents in April. However, in accordance with California election law, voters were given a 30-day period from April 26 to June 8th to request county officials remove their signatures from recall petitions.

Secretary Weber’s letter to the Department of Finance triggers the next phase of the recall process in which the DOF will estimate the costs of the gubernatorial recall if it is held as a special election and if it is held as part of the next regularly scheduled election. These estimated costs must be submitted to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) by August 5. Once the JLBC has had 30 days to review and comment, the Secretary of State will then certify the sufficiency of signatures pursuant to statute.

Newsom will be the second governor in California’s history to face a recall election. The last, Democrat Gray Davis, was recalled in 2003 and replaced by Republican actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.