SAN DIEGO — About two-thirds of California voters in a recent survey said they would support a constitutional amendment requiring specific reasons for a recall vote against a governor, such as corruption or criminal acts.
More than half, or 54% of respondents, said they favored raising the bar for signatures from the current standard of 12% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election to 20% of that number.
In general, a majority of California voters surveyed support changing the state's recall process, University of California, San Diego researchers said.
The survey, by the university's Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research, was conducted during the week of the gubernatorial recall election. Researchers questioned 2,812 registered voters in two stages, before and after the election on Sept. 14.
No matter the political party, the reform option supported by respondents regardless of political party was limiting the grounds for recall elections to "concerns about corruption or criminal acts" — 76% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 52% of Republicans agreed with it.
The survey also found that 53% of voters favored having a recall runoff among the top two candidates in a successful recall, but 35% favored the existing process, which awards the office to the candidate with the most votes, even if that's far less than a majority.
Overall, the survey concluded that more voters favored changing the process this year than after the last gubernatorial recall election against Gray Davis in 2003, although most people support keeping some version of recall elections in California.
This year, 40% of voters said they think the recall election needs major changes and 28% said it needs minor changes. That compares to 34% and 24% respectively in 2003.
Just 24% of those surveyed this year think it's OK as is, compared with 35% who were satisfied with the process in 2003.
Satisfaction with the recall process varied by partisan affiliation and shifted before and after the election. Prior to the Sept. 14 election, 79% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats said they were "somewhat" or "completely" satisfied with the recall process.
After the election, in which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom prevailed overwhelmingly against recall proponents, that was nearly reversed, with 63% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats expressing approval of the process.
Independent voters' support for the recall process remained steady at 62% before and after the election.
