How long after Davis is defeated does he HAVE to leave office? As soon as the votes are certified, Davis is out - all this talk about lawsuits contesting the results is just more empty blather. Depending on the margin (I think it will go 58-42, with Arnie at 45) and the pressure on the SoS, it could be as early as Tues night. This means Arnie could be sworn in the next morning at 9am to begin his work day.
At 9:30 he rescinds the car tax, at 10 he fires around 3,000 appointed commission/district heads (eg Steve Peace's wife, et al), and at 10:30 he announces an initiative to take away the drawing of district lines from the assembly.
Snerfling, your prediction defies logic and is wishful thinking. First, the County elections officials have to do a preliminary canvass of the votes in their individual jurisdictions. That means that they have to count all of the ballots cast election day, all of the absentee ballots turned in or mailed in, all of the qualified write-in votes, and account for all of the "spoiled" ballots. By law, the preliminary canvass accounting cannot start until Thursday. Then the County election officials have 28 days (from election) to complete the official canvass. The County executive authority (usually a County Board of Supervisors) then has five days to formally sumbit the canvass to the Secretray of State. The Secretary's office then tabulates all of the official County results and certifies a State result. They have five days for that. So it could take as many as 38 days to come to a legal conclusion, which may be very apparent Tuesday night.
The Davis governorship is officialy terminated when the Secretary of State signs a certification that the recall passed.