Idahoans for the Recall of Governor Little is making a final push to get enough signatures by August 11th for a recall election.

Charity Dooley-Myser is one of the lead organizers of the grassroots effort. She told KID that some volunteers will be driving through Idaho on Monday to collect more signatures on their way to Boise.

The group will also have “Notary Parties” on Sunday and Monday. The goal will be to have notaries at designated locations, where volunteers can get their individual petitions with the collected signatures notarized.

The original petition, approved May 28, 2020, needs 183,523 signatures by August 11th. Grievances Idahoans for the Recall of Governor Little have are mainly with his handling of COVID-19.

The group’s website, recallgovlittle.org, states that Little “continues to hold all of Idaho under his thumb, refusing to end his emergency order that has no expiration, refusing to convene the legislature, withholding funds from the unemployed he put out of work, spending 1.25 billion dollars however he wishes and coercing businesses before “allowing” them partial re-opening abilities.”

The website’s statement about a refusal to convene the legislature was made before Wednesday’s announcement that there will be a special legislative session August 24. Dooley-Myser thinks the recall effort affected Governor Little’s recent decision. “There’s no way to prove it,” she said, “but I’m going to say the pushback, and this [recall campaign] even being here…it played into his reconvening the legislature.”

Dooley-Myser also feels positive about having a variety of Idaho counties represented on the petition. Her estimate is about 80% of Idaho counties are represented on the recall petition. “If we can just get one person from every county to sign this petition, then we can say ‘Hey, there’s at least one person [upset] with the way the governor has handled this in every single county that was willing to kick you out’…that says something to me.”

While there’s no estimate on the number of signatures received just yet, Dooley Myers says “However it turns out in the end, it was worth every single effort. Every volunteer that participated, all the phone calls, all the late nights, all of it was worth it, because of the awareness and the discussions that have come up out of this – it’s priceless.”