California Gubernatorial Recall Election - Recall Election - Results

Results

The ballot had two questions.

The first question was whether Davis, the sitting governor, should be recalled; those voting on it were 55.4% in favor of recall and 44.6% opposed.

The second question was who would replace the governor in the event of a majority voted on the recall question. Among those voting on the potential replacement, Schwarzenegger received a plurality of 48.6%, by surpassing Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's 31.5% – about a 3-to-2 ratio. Republican Tom McClintock received 13.5% of the vote – less than half the share of the candidate he trailed. Green Party candidate Peter Camejo polled 2.8%, trailing the third-place candidate almost 4-to-1. Each remaining candidate polled 0.55% or less.

Schwarzenegger's votes exceeded those for the next five candidates combined, despite the presumed division of Republican voters between him and McClintock. There were also more votes for Schwarzenegger than votes against recalling Davis, avoiding the theoretical scenario of the replacement having less support than the recalled governor.

Following the election, all 58 of California's counties had 28 days (until November 4, 2003) each to conduct a countywide canvass of their votes. Counties used this time to count any absentee ballots or provisional ballots not yet counted, to reconcile the number of signatures on the roster of registered voters with the number of ballots recorded on the ballot statement, to count any valid write-in votes, to reproduce any damaged ballots, if necessary, and to conduct a hand count of the ballots cast in 1% of the precincts, chosen at random by the elections official.

Counties then had seven days from the conclusion of canvassing (November 11, 2003, 35 days after the election) to submit their final vote totals to the California Secretary of State's office. The Secretary of State had to certify the final statewide vote by 39 days (until November 15) after the election. The vote was officially certified on November 14, 2003. Once the vote was certified, governor-elect Schwarzenegger had to be sworn into office within ten days. His inauguration took place on November 17, making Schwarzenegger the 38th Governor of California.

Note that San Bernardino County did not report write-in votes for individual candidates.