FALL RIVER – Those looking to oust embattled Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II from office are going to have wait just a little bit longer. WBSM News has learned that a recall petition filed by Fall River resident Dawn Surrette has been rejected.

“I have notified the group that they do not have the required amount of signatures,” Fall River City Clerk Allison Bouchard told WBSM News. “I imagine they are going to try to collect the 10 signatures needed, but this petition has been rejected.”

Kelly Souza-Young, chair of the city’s Election Commission, said that although Surrette did collect the required 10 signatures, three of them could not be certified by the board due to incorrect addresses listed on the petition.

According to Bouchard, part of the problem is that two of the addresses appear to have been inverted by whoever filled out the petition.

Bouchard said the petition has to be redone, and that there is no time limit to get a new petition into the Clerk’s Offfice.

“They can file the petition at any time,” she said. “It’s just a question of whether they can all get together again and have their signatures notarized.”

Bouchard said once the 10 signatures are certified by the Board of Elections, the recall group will have 20 days to collect the signatures of five percent of Fall River’s estimated 50,000 registered voters. If successful, Bouchard said she is charged with notifying the City Council that part of the process has been completed.

From there, the Council will give Correia a five-day window in which to resign on his own before moving forward with a recall election. Bouchard said the recall election must be scheduled 65 days from the date of the certification of the final petition.

Bouchard is well-versed in the recall process, having overseen the process in 2014 when 70 percent of Fall River voters chose to recall then-Mayor Will Flanagan.

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