It's on.
Voters will be asked whether state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, needs to be recalled, and if so, who should take his place.
The recall effort -- spearheaded by Democrats because of Denham's opposition to last year's budget -- has enough signatures to go before voters, the Secretary of State's Office announced Tuesday.
Monterey County, the final county within District 12 that was tallying petitions, reported 6,829 valid signatures, bringing the total to 35,820.
Gov. Schwarzenegger must put the issue on a ballot 60 to 80 days from today. The June 3 election falls within that time range.
Denham was unavailable for comment.
The stage is now set for Democrats to back a candidate they believe will be able to take over District 12, an area that has more registered Democrats than Republicans.
Last week, Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II said he was personally approached by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata to run against Denham.
Morse, who ran for Assembly in 1996 and lost to Dennis Cardoza, said he hasn't been asked to respond to the offer.
Tuesday, he was unavailable for comment.
Another possible candidate is Monterey County Supervisor Simon Salinas, who served in the Assembly from 2000 to 2006.
While the state deals with an estimated $16 billion budget deficit, Denham must campaign for his seat against Democrats eager to snatch it.
Kevin Spillane, Denham's anti-recall campaign spokesman, said the recall effort had Sacramento ties.
He said the will of the voters in District 12, who elected the state senator, will not be overturned.
"The recall is unjustified and not based on Denham's performance in office," he said.
In July, Denham refused to vote for the state budget. He was widely viewed as the swing vote needed to end a budget stalemate.
Denham's opponents considered his no-vote tantamount to not wanting to fund schools, highway improvements and levee repairs.
Paul Hefner, the recall campaign's spokesman, was unavailable for comment, but the "Dump Denham!" campaign released a statement after the effort qualified.
"The voters have caught on to Jeff Denham -- they're recalling him for the same reasons people take unsafe toys off the shelf and tainted meat out of supermarkets -- because they're no good, and because we deserve better," the statement read.
The recall looked as though it might cause a hand-count of the petitions because Stanislaus County reported a much smaller number of signatures than would be expected.
It reported 10,144 valid signatures Friday, about one-third of the raw number submitted by recall proponents.
But that figure increased to 15,699 Monday when an error in the number of duplicate signatures discovered earlier was corrected.
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