The recall petition circulating in McKinney needs 5,805 valid signatures. That figure has been repeated in nearly every story about the effort, always attributed to the campaign. We checked it against the county's official records, and it is exactly right.
Where the number comes from
McKinney's home rule charter requires a recall petition to carry signatures equal to at least 30% of the votes cast at the last regular municipal election, with a floor of 1,000.
That election was May 3, 2025. According to Collin County's official final summary report, the McKinney mayoral contest recorded 19,147 votes cast plus 203 undervotes, for contest totals of 19,350 ballots.
Thirty percent of 19,350 is 5,805. Not approximately. Exactly.
Why the base year is easy to get wrong
The obvious assumption would be that the threshold keys off the most recent May election. It does not, because McKinney did not hold one.
The county's official summary for the May 2, 2026 joint election runs 19 pages and covers Allen, Anna, Celina, Frisco, Princeton, Lucas, Murphy, Parker, Sachse and others. McKinney appears nowhere in it. Countywide turnout that day was 7.13%, with 28,671 ballots cast among 401,916 registered voters.
So the arithmetic reaches back to May 2025, when the mayor's race drew far more interest than a typical city election.
What that election looked like
Bill Cox led the May 2025 mayoral field with 8,957 votes, or 46.78%, short of the majority needed to win outright. Scott Sanford took 7,813 votes, or 40.81%. Taylor Willingham and Matt "Doc" Rostami drew 1,268 and 1,109. Cox won the office in a runoff the following month.
