NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— There are many ethical questions being raised with the Mayor LaToya Cantrell recall. With back and forth lawsuits, WGNO’s legal expert Cliff Cardone is weighing in on how the lawsuits could stall the recall efforts.

“The filing date of the petition is the key date,” Cardone said.

Cardone said it is clear the law doesn’t allow for the Secretary of State to retroactively change the number of voters in the voter rolls.

“What could’ve been done the recall committee could’ve challenged the eligible voter numbers before they filed the recall petition,” he said.

Mayor recall organizers argue there was no way of them knowing the voter rolls were inaccurate. It wasn’t until they started hearing back from the public who were receiving recall mailers for their dead relatives.

“This effort was a grassroots effort by people who probably are not well versed in legal intricacies of voter election laws,” he said.

Mayor Cantrell’s lawyers now filed lawsuits against the Secretary of State claiming he had no legal authority to make a court settlement with recall leaders. By doing so, 25-thousand voters would be moved from active to inactive in the rolls. All this lowering the threshold by 5-thousand signatures for the recall.

“These are complicated issues and some of these issues have never been brought before the courts before,” he said.

Cardone went on to say, “Well I don’t think it smacks a back room deal at all. There may have been some evidence out there that the parties discussed that would motivate them in coming up with the judgement. A recall petition is one process and one procedure, an attack on eligibility of voters is a separate lawsuit, a separate procedure. What they are trying to do is combine the two into one procedure and that’s not acceptable to the courts.”