Section 21-4-8. Recall petition -- Electors eligible to sign; procedure for circulating; obtaining and verifying signatures; form for affidavit of circulator; change in signature and residence address

   (a) All signers of a single recall petition shall be electors who are registered and eligible to vote in the recall election and who reside in the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled. When a petition for the recall of a public official is circulated in more than one county, each sheet of the petition shall bear the name of the county in which it is circulated, and only electors of the designated county may sign such sheet. No recall petition shall be circulated or signed by any person in any location where alcoholic beverages are sold or served.

(b) Every elector signing a recall petition shall do so in the presence of the person circulating the petition, who is to execute the affidavit of verification on the reverse side of the petition form. At the time of signing, the elector shall sign his name, and such elector or the person circulating the petition shall print the name of the elector below the elector's signature and shall print or write in the appropriate spaces following the signature the elector's residence address, giving number and street or route and city, the name of the county, and the date on which the elector signed the petition. No notary public may sign the petition as an elector or serve as a circulator of any petition which he or she notarized. Any and all sheets of a recall petition that have the circulator's affidavit notarized by a notary public who also served as a circulator of one or more sheets of the recall petition or who signed one of the sheets of the petition as an elector shall be disqualified and rejected.

(c) If an elector is incapable of signing his or her own name, he or she may specifically request the circulator of the petition to sign and print his or her name and complete the information required on the petition sheet to accompany the signature; provided, however, that the circulator shall also sign his or her full name beside the printed name of such elector.

(d) The person before whom the electors signed the recall petition shall verify, in an affidavit subscribed and sworn to by him or her before a notary public, that each of the names on the petition form was signed in his or her presence on the date indicated and that in his or her belief each signer was an elector of the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled.

(e) The affidavit printed on the reverse side of each recall petition form shall be in the following form:
 
 
                            AFFIDAVIT OF CIRCULATOR                            

   State of Georgia
   County of         
      Under the penalty of a violation of Code Section 16-10-71 of the 
   Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to false swearing, punishable 
   by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or by imprisonment of not less than one 
   nor more than five years, or both, I do depose and say that I am an elector 
   registered to vote in the recall election herein petitioned for and that 
   each petitioner signed or caused to be signed the foregoing petition in my 
   presence on the date indicated; and I believe that each signer's name and 
   residence address are correctly stated, and that each signer is an elector 
   of the electoral district in which such recall election will be conducted, 
   and that each signer has read, or was read, the required statements which 
   are also set out on each petition.
 
              (Signature of affiant)                                          
 
              (Residence address)                                             
 
                                                             (Number and street
 
                                                                   or route)   
 
 
 

 
                                                                               
 
                                                            (City)
   Subscribed and sworn to
   before me this     
   day of     ,     .
            
   Notary public
       , Georgia
      My commission expires on the     day of         ,     .

(f) An elector may change the way his or her signature and residence address appear on the recall petition at any time prior to the filing of the petition for verification by striking through his or her name and initialing the strike-through and re-signing the petition with his or her printed name corrected accordingly.

Code 1981, § 21-4-8, enacted by Ga. L. 1989, p. 1721, § 1; Ga. L. 1999, p. 21, § 1; Ga. L. 1999, p. 23, § 4.