DC Board of Elections issues official recall petition for Councilmember Charles Allen
WASHINGTON - Efforts to recall D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen took a step forward Tuesday as the Board of Elections issued an official recall petition.
The group of concerned citizens who have been calling for his removal reported raising over $56,000 in the campaign so far.
On Tuesday morning, D.C.'s Board of Elections issued an official petition to recall the Ward 6 council member after a committee launched the removal effort on January 1. The group blames Allen in part for the rise in violent crime in the District.
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Allen is the former chair of the Council Judiciary and Public Safety committee and the lead architect on the revision of D.C.'s criminal code that was vetoed by the mayor and overturned by Congress last March. The petition claims Allen "spearheaded legislation to free violent offenders long before their sentences were up" and worked to slash MPD's budget, resulting in 450 fewer officers.
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Allen's response – also listed on the petition – was that he expanded MPD's cadet pipeline, established a $25,000 signing bonus for new officers, and passed laws to ban ghost guns and increase penalties for dangerous automatic weapons.
Now, the committee will have to get signatures from 10 percent of Ward 6's residents to move forward with the recall.
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According to the board, the Ward covering H Street Northeast, Capitol Hill, and the Southwest Waterfront boasts a population of just over 60,000 residents. That means petitioners need over 6,000 signatures.
If successful, Allen would be the first board member to get recalled. There was an effort to recall embattled D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans in 2019, but petitioners fell short of the number of signatures they needed after Evans challenged thousands of signatures as invalid. Evans eventually resigned.