'Unite Norman': supporters of mayor "still don't get it" when claiming 30,000 recall signers were tricked

“THEY STILL DON’T GET IT” – Supporters of Soon-To-Be-Recalled Mayor, City Council Say 30,000 Normanites Must Have Been “Tricked” into Signing Petitions — Nothing Could be Further from the Truth, Voters Were Very Informed as Recall Was One of the Most-Covered Stories in Norman this Summer

Mayor, City Council Supporters Suggesting that All of the People Who Signed the Petition — Women, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, People under Age 50, and People over Age 50 — Must Have Been Tricked, They Can’t Possibly Have Decided for Themselves

Continued denial from city leaders shows they still don’t get it

Norman Recall story has been the biggest political story of the summer —voters were very informed by daily Media stories, newspaper ads, doorstep visits, and social media discussions

NORMAN (August 19th)  — Supporters of the mayor and city council are suggesting that 30,000 Normanites were “tricked” into signing petitions to recall the mayor and city council — but nothing could be further from the truth.

After a contentious summer debating the Defunding of Police, the Recall story has arguably become one of the biggest news stories in Norman and that state. To suggest that the citizens in Norman didn’t know what the recall was over is just disingenuous.

It is a tactic straight out of the Democrats’ playbook — a tactic that has been used in other Recall elections, such as the Colorado Recalls, where signature gatherers there also got above & beyond the required signatures.

“This mayor and city council still don’t get it,” said Russell Smith, co-founder of Unite Norman. “Thousands of volunteers spent hundreds of hours talking with residents of Norman on their doorsteps, at least 100 local TV stories were aired on the issue, and dozens of hours were spent talking with the media, and with the public on social media.


“After those hundreds of hours talking about the most-talked about issue in town, and even in the face of intimidation by the other side threatening harm to our volunteers and anyone who signed the petition, 30,000 citizens still stepped up and said, ‘Yes, sign my name on the dotted line, this is important.’ They didn’t do so lightly. For this mayor and city council supporters to now suggest that the people of Norman were too dumb to know what was going on, tells you exactly what they think of the people of Norman.”

Who, exactly, do the city council and mayor think are too stupid to read?

• Nearly 1/3 of the petitions were signed by Democrats and Independents (not Republicans)
• More than 49% of petition signers were women
• Nearly 40% of petition signers were age 50 and under

“I suppose with their effort now to cancel out some petitions, supporters of the mayor think that women, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, and people in every age category can’t read, and are too stupid to decide for themselves how they feel about the issues,” said Sassan Moghadam, co-founder of Norman. “It tells you exactly how little respect they have for the process, and for the people of Norman.”