Breaking News: Initiative Sponsors Violating Oregon Law

According to Our Oregon, a progressive organization fighting for stable funding for public services, the sponsors of several right-wing ballot measures are violating Oregon election law and wage-and-hour law.

From the press release:

Today Ellen Lowe, the chief petitioner of Measure 26, filed an election law violation complaint against the sponsors of four ballot measure petitions. Measure 26, which was passed by Oregon voters in 2002, made it illegal to pay circulators per signature. Lowe’s complaint says that based on statements gathered from circulators who worked for initiative petitions 14, 23, 24 and 57, circulators are being paid per signature. The circulators are acting as witnesses for the election law violation complaint. They have also filed wage and hour claims with the Bureau of Labor and Industries. ...

Initiative petitions 14 and 24 are sponsored by the Washington, D.C. based FreedomWorks, with executive director Russ Walker as one of the chief petitioners. Initiative petition 23 is sponsored by Bill Sizemore. Initiative Petition 51 57 is sponsored by Oregonians in Action, with chief petitioner Ross Day, who is OIA’s director of legal affairs.

This is a major story, and we'll be updating with more details as they become available.

Update: Lots more details in the comments.

  • Steve Talley (unverified)
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    Congratulations to Our Oregon for keeping conservatives honest. It always amazes me what lengths those who think they are chosen by god to right the wrongs of the world will go to. "Illegal? Sure, but it's for a good cause and we're on the RIGHT side, god's side."

  • Patty Wentz (unverified)
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    Here is a link to photos from the news event. It was very lively! As some of you are aware, on Monday one of the signature gathering contractors moved into office space in our building. It was an amazing coincidence because at the same time the company was moving in, their former employees were reporting to us that they were illegally being paid per signature. Not only that, they were paid in cash - sometimes on street corners or out of the windows of a red car. They never received receipts for their payment nor were they allowed to report their actual hours worked.

    Having the signature gathering company move into the basement was a great opportunity because the former circulators had told us that they were paid on Mondays and Thursdays around 10:00 a.m. So we invited the media to come about 9:40, finished our statements quickly, then seven reporters went to the back entrance to talk to signature gatherers who were coming to turn their signatures in. Apparently, after they turn their signatures in, the petition sheets are taken to Clackamas (according to what other circulators told us) and then one of the two managers for the company, Parker Bell or Brian Platt comes back with the cash.

    Today, the circulators were told to return at 3:00 today to pick up their cash.

    Several signature gatherers told reporters that they were paid per signature. Others said per hour. But as the reporters dug in and asked more questions, the facts became pretty clear - circulators said if they gathered six signatures they were paid for one hour, no matter how many hours it took them to gather those signatures. Others claimed that they were told they would be paid per hour, but it was their first payday, so it remained to be seen.

    Also on the scene was Parker Bell. As you'll see in the photos, he wasn't all that interested in talking to the press, although he did promise to meet with some later if they called him.

    Channels 2, 8 and 6 were here as well as the Oregonian, Willamette Week, Oregon Public Broadcasting and KEX. We've also checked in with Associated Press and BlueOregon.com

    After the media left, more signature gatherers showed up to get paid and so far at least one sat down to file a wage and hour claim and election law violation claim after learning that he was not paid everything he was owed.

    Again, here is a link to the photos: http://flickr.com/photos/ouroregon/sets/1636816/ Also, keep checking in here at www.blueoregon.com to get the latest updates on the story. Remember, pay time is 3:00 p.m. today. We’ll let you know what happens.

  • Patty (unverified)
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    Time: 3:11

    After a brief flare up, all is quiet. Several circulators showed up and Jon Becker from KGW also showed up, but no sign of Parker Bell or Brian Platt. People seemed pretty irritated that they weren't getting paid.

  • Patty (unverified)
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    Time: 3:44

    Still no Parker Bell or Brian Platt...and siganture gatherers are still waiting here to get paid. Question - shouldn't they be paid for this waiting time?

  • Todd Brown (unverified)
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    You know what’s outrageous about this? These initiative sponsors hired Parker Bell after he’d been hit with a fine for running a fraudulent signature gathering operation last year! The Secretary of State should come down hard on all of them –- on Parker Bell AND the initiative sponsors.

    It seems that the conservative war machine is engaging in unethical and illegal tactics at every level of government with little or no consequence. It looks like some of these crooks are finally getting what's been coming to them.

    It’s fraud like this that makes voters lose faith in the system. The integrity of Oregon’s initiative process must be protected against these bounty-for-signature operations. And I hope to hear next week that the Bill Bradbury and the Dept. of Justice do the right thing -– fine these guys hard and put them out of business. For good this time.

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    Hey, if you want to catch a news story on this, I heard it's going to be on KGW tonight on their 10 pm and 11 pm broadcasts.

  • Charles (unverified)
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    Amazing -- Freedomworks, Oregonians in Action and Sizemore all working together to break the law. That's like a bad guy tri-fecta. No surprise they would cut all the legal and ethical corners, I guess. I'm just impressed progresives busted their ass.

    A christmas miracle.

  • Patty (unverified)
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    It's nearly 5:00 here at the building where the signature gathering office is. It's nearly dark. Folks are still hanging out - some as long as two hours - waiting to get paid. Parker Bell and Brian Platt appear to have gone AWOL.

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    These sleazeball signature-gathering companies have got to cease flaunting the law. I must add, where is the Oregon AG in all of this? Must law-abiding citizens continue to do their work for them? You would think after the track record of previous signature-gathering schemes, the AG's office would be all over these kind of violations.

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    OPB just ran a long story on this, and it was great! Christella Lopez, Parker Bell's girlfriend, talked to reporters, and said some amazing stuff, just giving it all away, even as they tried to deny that they were paying per signature.

    Christella Lopez: "They have to get six signatures on each initiative, for that hour, in order to get paid." Reporter: "What if you work ten hours, only get six signatures, how much do you get paid?" CL: "One hour. I mean, unless you were incompetent, you'd be able to talk to six people an hour. I mean, that's the minimum."

    Yeah... Unless you were incompetent, you could follow basic election laws!

  • dave brown (unverified)
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    Are these the same guys that Dan Meek hired to collect signatures for his campaign finance measure?

  • Jessica (unverified)
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    I don't know if everyone saw this in the photos, but there's a suspicious character who seems to have shown up at the press conference, and Our Oregon needs help identifying him. Take a look here and here.

  • JK (unverified)
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    "I don't know if everyone saw this in the photos, but there's a suspicious character who seems to have shown up at the press conference, and Our Oregon needs help identifying him. Take a look here and here."

    Why do you need to identify him? Does this mean the you keep a photo book of enemies? Reminds me of NIXON's sleezy tricks.

    Thanks JK

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    I wouldn't say we NEED to identify him. He just behaved really strangely, and no one present really thought he was a signature gatherer, though he claimed to be. It seemed more likely that he was one of the ringleaders. He refused to give his name to the reporters, when asked.

  • Patty (unverified)
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    Cristella is here now, maybe paying circulators. There has been some yelling.

    The Associated Press has a story in which Dave Hunnicutt uses the same defense that other sponsors use when these charges arise: that signature gatherers are evaluated based on the number of signatures they gather.

    That's not what is happening here.

    Let's say Mr. Hunnicutt is paid a salary for working at Oregonians in Action. And let's assume his understanding is he will be paid per hour, but that in order to keep his job, he has to file a minimum of 6 property rights claims per month. And let's say that if he files only 3 claims, he could be fired because he didn't meet the expectations of the job. Fair enough. He failed to do the job.

    But he would still have to be paid for the hours he worked. His salary could not be cut by 50% based on the number of claims he filed. Because he actually worked those hours.

    So companies have the right to set expectations. They have the right to hire and fire. But they must pay for the hours worked.

    What Bell and Platt are doing is telling the signature gatherers that the sheets they turn in don't qualify them to get paid the hourly rate so they are either underpaying them or not paying them at all. They count the signatures and calculate the rate.

    It couldn't be more clear. That's not a quota - that's payment per signature. And it's illegal.

    Here's the link to the AP story.

  • Lisa Wolf (unverified)
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    So today the bottomfeeders were busted.

    Let's follow this fraud all the way up the foodchain! Who's paying these creeps who pay the petitioners? And why didn't the folks in charge hire a reputable firm? Maybe that wasn't a mistake. Maybe they care more about getting their initiatives on the ballot than they care about the integrity of system.

    Shame on these petition sponsors twice: Shame on them for treating their vulnerable employees so badly, and shame on them for treating Oregon voters so badly.

  • Robin (unverified)
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    The important thing is to avoid, prevent and obstruct the public from voting on as many issues as possible.

    They have shown too many times they vote the wrong way.

  • Wes Wagner (unverified)
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    Robin,

    Excellent sarcasm - I love it - do you want me to mail you a free paper? [email protected]

    -Wes Wagner NW Meridian PS: It's funny how the people who created the initiative petition now hate things going to a public vote because the public always votes against their ideas.

  • CLP (unverified)
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    Robin: No, the important thing is that signatures are collected properly, reguardless of merit of the initiatves. Paying people on a per-signature basis creates an incentive to forge signatures. After such forgery was documented, Oregonians decided, by the initiative process, to disallow this practice. Sure, we have no evidence that the people in this particular incident were forging signatures, but if the payment-per-signature allegations are true, then this incident is deeply troubling.

    It has nothing to do with the proposed measure involved. I would be just as troubled if signature gathers for a left-leaning measure were being paid per signature. I hope everyone else here would be as well.

    Wes: That's not always true. The law that prohibits paying signature gatherers on a per-signature basis was passed via initiative.

    There has to be some standard to limit the number of measures. If everyone's favorite idea for a ballot measure got on the ballot, our ballots would be 300 pages long. When you have too many measures, most people haven't the time or energy to carefully scrutinize each one, and as a result, poor decisions are made. Thus, I think it is a good idea that people be careful about the petitions they sign (people should insist on reading the entire text of the measure before signing), and that safeguards against fraud are meticulously applied.

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    I'll be glad when the "per signature" rule is extended to include voter registrations.

    I can't tell you how many fake voter registrations were submitted to the elections offices last year. However, the vast majority did not have real addresses on them, or were for business addresses as opposed to residential, and did not go through.

    We also got a lot of calls from people who received ballots at their home for people who didn't exist, for their dog, etc.

  • Robin (unverified)
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    CLP, Your lecture really wasn't needed.

    Besides you made my point any way.

    First you say the point is to make sure "signatures are collected properly" and to avoid the "incentive to forge signatures".

    Then you say "There has to be some standard to limit the number of measures."

    Translation: Avoid, prevent and obstruct the public from voting.

    "poor decisions are made" according to you and your bullshit.

    The ban on pay per signature was all about stopping public votes period.

    Although there may have been some isolated cases of some forgeries, you can't point to a single ballot initiative that was placed on the ballot because of forged signatures.

    Even before the ban it was extremely difficult and costly to get an initiative on the ballot.

    Your conniving chaps want it nearly impossible because the voters are too friggin stupid, Right?

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    Robin, you ask, "Your conniving chaps want it nearly impossible because the voters are too friggin stupid, Right?"

    No. Because some (but not all) initiative sponsors are too stupid.

    For the love of god, Measure 37 had typos in it. They couldn't even be bothered to hire a proofreader - nevermind a decent attorney.

  • David Delk (unverified)
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    To answer the question regarding Dan Meek and the Campaign Finance Reform initiative using the Parker Bell gang, we are not using them.

  • Marcello (unverified)
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    I'll be glad when the "per signature" rule is extended to include voter registrations.

    HB 2583-A failed in the house last session, on a party line vote. Would have prohibited individuals from receiving payments based on the number of signed voter registration cards they collect. Once we take the house next year, it should pass.

    There are many things that can be done to prevent fraud in the electoral procedures here in Oregon. But until republicans like Derrik Kitts are chairing the committees on it, there is no chance of those proposals passing.

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    Marcello--

    Yea, I was pretty disappointed it failed. I think probably every single person who spent any time working in a county elections office last year probably felt the same way.

    Some groups were bringing in box after box of voter reg cards-- and many they had to have known were fake (such as one for Satan that I came across and one for Santa that someone else came across).

    I can't wait until we take the House-- I'm doing my part by helping us to win H.D. 49 and 50 out here in Gresham.

  • askquestions1st (unverified)
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    Odd thing about populists: They all believe "My populism good, your populism bad".

    Whether or not one agrees with the substance of these petitions (and I don't), why exactly is paying people by the hour "good", but paying people by the signature "bad" --- particularly since apparently the impetus for this change was that fraudulent signatures were caught before, meaning the verification system worked?

    (Of course, this is not a defense of what is happening in this case, the state should throw the book at the sponsors of these petitions for violating labor laws by not paying these people according to the terms of the agreement they made to pay them by the hour, since failing to meet a production quota might legally be grounds for termination, but not for withholding pay.)

    And if there is a danger bad signatures won't be caught, doesn't that obviously mean that it would be possible for vote-by-mail votes with bad signatures would get through (same voters, same verification, right?)

    Like I said, sounds more like a case of "my populism good, your populism bad", than any rational defense of representative democracy.

    By the way Kari --- literacy and intelligence tests for participating in the electoral process went out with the 14th Amendment. Whether one believes that is a good thing or not (and I happen to believe it was), based on the posts by some of the progressives on Blue Oregon, we probably shouldn't be throwing stones about political or print literacy. Rather we should be educating folks about the importance of representative democracy in a pluralistic society as a necessary check sometimes on populism.

  • CLP (unverified)
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    Then you say "There has to be some standard to limit the number of measures." Translation: Avoid, prevent and obstruct the public from voting.

    Robin, are you saying there should be no bar to putting measures on the ballot? If that were the case, the ballot would be 500 pages long? (I'm not using hyperbole here, either. How many bills are proposed in the Legislature each session?) There's no way that most voters would be able to wade through that.

    There has to be some standard to limit the number of measures on the ballot.

    The ban on pay per signature was all about stopping public votes period.

    I doubt that's what Oregonians had in mind when they passed Measure 26. And if Measure 26 was about destroying the initiative process, it has done a lousy job, considering that initiatives continue to be passed despite it.

    (Even if the backers of Measure 26 hated the initiative system and wanted it to go away, I don't think that was the motives of the Oregonians who passed it.)

    Although there may have been some isolated cases of some forgeries, you can't point to a single ballot initiative that was placed on the ballot because of forged signatures.

    I don't know if a measure was ever placed on the ballot solely due to fraud, and frankly, there's no way for me to know. I don't think we could ever detect more than a small portion of the fraud on initiative sheets. But there were several documented cases of fraud, and it doesn't take a psychologist to understand how paying people per signature would lead to more fake signatures. Nor do the companies who collect signatures have much of a motivation to eliminate such fraud. I think Oregonians were very reasonable in saying that the integrity of our process depends on eliminating such a clear motivation to cheat.

    Your conniving chaps want it nearly impossible because the voters are too friggin stupid, Right?

    No. I don't think it's voter stupidity that makes it difficult for voters to wade through ballots chalk-full of measures. I think it's time limitations: voters don't have time to seriously research and discuss more than a handful of measures per election. Legislators, lobbyists, and members of the media can, because it's their job. But for the average working person, wading a ballot full of mostly crap (and I think left-leaning measures are just a capable of being crap as right-leaning measures) is a headache, and invites a voter to overlook some crucial but steathily-placed detail in a measure.

    But here's a question for you, Robin: suppose you disagree with me, and think this law is "bullshit". Does that mean these people should be allowed to just disreguard it?

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    AQ1-- Come on, let's not go setting up straw-man arguments here. I certainly didn't argue for any "literacy and intelligence tests" for voters. I didn't even argue for any tests of that sort for initiative sponsors.

    As for your other question - why do we need this if the fraudulent signatures are caught anyway? Because they were NOT caught anyway. In 2002, the only way that a bunch of fraudulent signatures were discovered was because a private organization - the Voter Education Project - paid for the research themselves.

    The government auditing processes were failing. Or, more to the point, the systems aren't in place (by law, not by incompetence) to catch these fraudsters. You see, the whole system - like much in politics - relies on self-enforcement by political opposition.

    But the problem there is that if one side is overwhelmingly defrauding the system (as Bill Sizemore did - note: conviction for racketeering) then that simply creates costs for their political opponents. And that doesn't make sense.

    It makes more sense to have tougher rules that have brighter-line enforcement, and eliminate some of the incentives for bad behavior.

    When Oregon voters got rid of pay-per-signature, they chose to reduce the incentive for fraud. That's a good thing. Now, there's a group that appears to be circumventing that law -- why?

    Hard to know - incompetent? or deliberate fraud? We can't know. But we do know that they appear to be violating the wage-and-hour law and the election law.

  • (Show?)

    CLP wrote: But here's a question for you, Robin: suppose you disagree with me, and think this law is "bullshit". Does that mean these people should be allowed to just disregard it?

    I remember fondly the late 1990s, when every Republican was going on and on and on about "the rule of law". Now, George Bush doesn't care about it - and Robin (among others) thinks our election law is "bullshit". Oh, it's good to be a Republican.

    Election law and intelligence oversight law doesn't matter, but lying about blowjobs, well that's REALLY IMPORTANT.

  • (Show?)

    Here's the difference in paying per hour as opposed to per signature:

    PER SIGNATURE: You work 6 hours and get 10 signatures. You're paid $2 per signature. You end up with $12 for 6 hours worth of work-- or $2/hour.

    PER HOUR: You work 6 hours and get 10 signatures. You're paid minimum wage. You get paid $72.50 for that work-- or $7.25/hour. If 10 signatures was below what they'd like you to get, you can be reprimanded, fired, or if you were making more than minimum wage your hourly wage could be lowered.

    Yes, some people may be tempted to forge signature to keep their job or keep their wage from being lowered. However, it's not going to be nearly the temptation as it is when you're worried you may only make a few bucks for an entire day's worth of work.

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    And if there is a danger bad signatures won't be caught, doesn't that obviously mean that it would be possible for vote-by-mail votes with bad signatures would get through (same voters, same verification, right?)

    I could be wrong, but aren't signatures on petitions randomly checked? I thought I had heard that they only randomly check signatures/info on the petitions.

    I know for a fact that every signature on every ballot is checked (I did it myself last year).

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    Jenni - you are correct on both counts.

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    once upon a time i was proud of Oregon's ballot measure system. what a great idea, thinks i, having grown up in the wilderness of Billings, Montana (although native Oregon born). i was so happy to sign petitions to get good laws before the voters, to make sure justice was done by real democracy.

    i almost never sign petitions anymore. we have better and more effective means of democratizing our politics these days. even the best written initiative is going to have hidden traps and loopholes. it's inevitable with how complex our laws are. few of these are written with any kind of care. most try to cover too much, or be too specific, or to cover too many possibilities. all hopeless causes.

    the Constitution of the United States works so well because it is brief and contingent. the Founders did not try to fix the world with that document; they just set the groundrules. they expected those who followed them to act through the legislatures , executives and courts to deal with problems as they arose. the simplicity, with all its ambiguity and room for improvement, has worked wondrously well.

    most ballot measures fail the simplest tests of good law. we don't need more ballot measures; we need more citizen interaction with the legislature. we need an annual session, for that matter, a chance for people to work with their elected officials on an on-going basis to amend laws in smaller steps. no one gets ahead of me in line in terms of being a democrat, but i think the day of the ballot measure has passed. we need to find better ways to bring citizens into the process -- not special interest groups with the money to pay for signatures and advertising.

  • PanchoPdx (unverified)
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    Jenni,

    What was the average amount of time you (or anyone else you know) spent checking validity on each vote-by-mail signature?

    I bet it was less than five seconds per signature. Probably around two or three seconds.

    Compare to the average time used to verify petition signatures. More like a minute per signature. I know, I've watched the process. The election officials study the way someone makes their t's or L's as if they are trying to solve a crime. They ignore the fact that most petition signers sign petitions on the street on a clipboard held by someone else (rather than sitting down to sign a vote-by-mail ballot at the comfort of their dinner table), they've heard that there is fraud in the petitions and they are happy to play Dick Tracy.

    Consider that in the average signature verification process, a county election office has about two weeks to verify 5% of the signatures gathered in the county per petition, but in a vote by mail election the county verifies every signature on every vote cast (and there are many more of these than petition signatures) in a shorter period.

    Vastly different levels of scrutiny, don't kid yourself.

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    Actuakky Poncho, you're wrong. The procedure for comparing signatures is the same for petitions and ballots.

    During last year's election, we had every computer in the building working to check signatures on ballots. We probably had something like 30 people verifying signatures. We started doing that days before election day-- shortly after ballots started coming back. The ballots weren't opened, the signatures were just checked and then the boxes were locked up.

    When checking initiative petitions, it's usually only the people in the one small room that are checking signatures.

    We were all trained in watching to check for how letters like t, i, p, h, etc. were done. We were also to look at the slant of signatures.

    We had an expert in signatures and hand writing comparison come in and do training on this.

    We also were shown how a signature could differ if written while you were sitting down as opposed to on a clipboard-- the way many signatures on voter regs were done.

    Most signatures can be checked in about 4-5 seconds. However, on numerous occasions we had signatures that took longer.

    We also didn't have to verify anything but the signature matched the name on the envelope and that it matched the signature on file (sometimes people in the same household accidentally signed each other's envelopes). With petitions they're also verifying the information with the signature is correct.

  • Becky (unverified)
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    I've watched elections officials validate entire pages of forged signatures. I've also seen them invalidate absolutely valid signatures. I don't have a lot of faith in their ability to judge correctly.

    Regarding the pay-per-signature versus per-hour debate, I tend to disagree that it's a good idea. The reason is there are some people who are just plain incredibly good at engaging people and collecting signatures. These professional signature gatherers are motivated by per-signature pay. They are very efficient and because they view petitioning as their career they rarely, if ever, cheat or forge signatures because they don't want to be blacklisted. There are others who are lazy and crooked, who will do the minimum necessary to get by and don't respect the process. These are the ones most likely to forge signatures, no matter how they are paid. What's going to stop them from forging pages and pages of signatures and claiming they collected 6 an hour when they've already show themselves to be willing to forge pages and pages of signatures in order to avoid getting off their butts and collecting them for real? Absolutely nothing. I'm no Sizemore apologist, but I will say that I believe wholeheartedly that he was far better at spotting forgeries than any of the elections officials I have observed, and he truly worked hard to weed forgeries out. Sometimes they slipped through - it happens. But despite all the other bad behavior he engaged in, I do not believe Sizemore ever tolerated or encouraged submission of forged signatures.

    I will bet that in this case, Sizemore and the others working on this campaign believe the per-signature law is unconstitutional, don't respect it, and feel they are acting within their rights to pay on a per-signature basis so long as they don't get caught or so long as they can make a case that they were following the law. They appear to have overlooked the lack of political savvy and ability to keep the flapper shut of some of their employees (and I would also bet the employees who are cooperating were plants in the first place - part of a sting operation - not that I have a problem with that). In my opinion, the law is what it is, whether right or wrong, and should be followed until changed or successfully challenged in court, but my assessment of the groups involved here is that they respect what they feel is right more than they respect the law, which is why they are apparently getting into trouble here.

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    Jenni,

    Thank you so much for describing the signature verification process on ballots. You did us all a service. So many times people across the country criticize vote by mail and insist that there is a lot of fraud. It helps to have the facts and really understand the safeguards built in. It is too bad this isn't published in the Oregonian in at least the same detail you described, but then this is why I love to read BlueOregon.

  • PanchoPdx (unverified)
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    So I'm "wrong" Jenni?

    I said that vote-by-mail signatures get on average less than 5 seconds of scrutiny apiece. You said that it was 4-5 seconds for most of them.

    Sounds like I pegged it.

    I can tell you for a fact that most initiative petition signatures average close to a minute of scrutiny. I've been there.

    There are no objective standards for disqualification, the folks doing it admit it is more of an "art" than a science. Sometimes that art is used to search for inclusiveness (i.e., look for consistencies between signatures) and sometimes it presents itself as an opportunity to throw out a "Robert N. Pescatelli" because he just signed "R. N. Pescatelli" but hadn't updated his signature card to reflect his new signature.

    What's more, Jenni, is that there is a disincentive to hold vote-by-mail signatures to the same standard as initiative petitions because of the reporting requirements for each. If a vote-by-mail signature is discarded, it requires paperwork. The voter has to be informed, and often they are not too happy about having their vote disqualified.

    When a petition signature is thrown out, not only does the signer never find out about it, that signature takes 19 others with it (because of the random sampling formula). No paperwork is filled out, no notice to anyone. A checker just puts an "x" by the signature and marks a number in a column.

    The truth is that if half as many people had their signatures discarded under vote-by-mail as for petitions, the outcry would be enormous. We would have gone back to regular polling methods years ago.

  • sasha (unverified)
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    Personally, I love vote by male. This nation has gone steadily downhill since we gave women the vote.

  • Marcello (unverified)
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    I said that vote-by-mail signatures get on average less than 5 seconds of scrutiny apiece. You said that it was 4-5 seconds for most of them.

    Sounds like I pegged it.

    I can tell you for a fact that most initiative petition signatures average close to a minute of scrutiny. I've been there.

    Is too much to ask for you to actually READ Jenni's message before replying?

    1) Ballot envelopes have a barcode. You scan the barcode and all the signatures on file for that voter appear on the screen. You compare them with the one on the envelope, and in 5 seconds you go to the next one. If there are any doubts, the envelope gets put aside for a later, longer review.

    2) Signatures on an initiative sheet have no barcode or anything that will have a computer pop up the voter signature on the screen. You try to decypher the name and address on the form next to the signature, and use that to search in the computer signature database. A minute per signature sounds about right.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
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    It simply isn't true that banning pay per signature prevents companies from collecting signatures. There is at least one company, here that pays by the hour and has been very successful.

    The claim that there has been some massive fraud with voter registration has never been documented. Which I think is the reason legislation has never passed. People who fill out voter registration cards for Santa are not trying to commit fraud. Moreover, there are any number barriers already in place to prevent fraudulent voting that are more effective than restricting voter registration procedures. This is a solution looking for a problem.

  • Marcello (unverified)
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    The claim that there has been some massive fraud with voter registration has never been documented. Which I think is the reason legislation has never passed.

    Do we find MASSIVE voter registration fraud for people to pay attention? What's wrong with prevention, anyway?

    As far as I am concerned, if one voter find herself registered to the wrong party because the registration card was altered before delivery to the election office, or if a voter is unable to vote because his registration card is tossed in the trash, we have a problem. Didn't we have something like that happen in the last election?

    It is just amazing that preventing elections fraud is a partisan issue.

  • Wes Wagner (unverified)
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    It may be that vote fraud is a partisan issue becuase both sides want to be sure that whatever happens, they are able to cheat the system better than their opponents.

    Democrats hand out free cartons of cigs in Wisconsin and get caught red handed and aren't prosecuted... why? because nobody would want to start a habit of prosecuting election fraud.

    After all - republicans might wind up in jail for voting machine malfeasance if they started that tradition.

    Just because we have a democracy does not mean we are free.

    -Wes Wagner

  • charles (unverified)
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    Couldn't help noticing that David Delk didn't actually answer the previous question about whether this was the same Parker Bell that they were using on the CFR campaign.

    David's response seemed very spare and well parsed: "we are not using him" is not the same as "we haven't used him," i.e. before he went on to Freedomworks.

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    Marcello had it right. Guess I should have went into more detail.

    Ballots are grouped together by precinct when they come in. Someone then scans each envelope's barcode into the computer, creating a batch. That batch is a box of envelopes.

    When you go to work a box, it has a code on it. You put the code into the computer, which tells the computer which batch you're working on. It pops up the first envelope in the box. You select whether or not it matches, and then it pops up the next envelope.

    We didn't have to go hunting for the person's registration-- they were already bundled together on the computer so we could quickly run through a box.

    Most signatures only take 4-5 seconds because they are almost exactly the same as the signature on file. It's the ones that are different (J. Simonis as opposed to Jennifer Simonis, or they use a nickname instead of their first name) that take a bit longer. But you look at how they wrote their last name, how they write out certain letters to see if the signature is from the same person. It doesn't have to match the signature exactly (Will instead of William, J. instead of Jennifer, etc.) to be approved.

    If a signature doesn't match, it isn't thrown out right away-- other people check those signatures.

    When they do petitions, they have to try to figure out the person's handwriting so that they can locate the person in the voter database. Sometimes it can take a good 20-40 seconds just to pull up the person's record. Once they locate the person, they have to verify the person's signature as well as the other information that is listed (address).

    Of course it's going to take longer-- they have to decipher the handwriting, find the person in the computer, verify information, and verify signature. That's always going to take longer than having the signature pop up right in front of you automatically and comparing only a signature to the screen.

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    Wow, cool thread. This may mark the first time we've essentially had liveblogging in a comments thread--from the subject of the post, no less. Thanks, Patty, for participating--this is really what distinguishes blogs as "collaborative" media.

    As to the populism argument, it DOES need nuance. When progressives first established the initiative system, it was to fight entrenched power. We've seen many wonderful results from this--from the Bottle Bill to Death with Dignity. But it has lately been hijacked by the very entrenched power it was meant to combat--and often in the form of out-of-state (big money) interests. To call that "populism" is at best ignornance.

    Another wrinkle is that populism can lead to dangerous or stupid laws. We would not live in a free society if the majority always ruled--the heart of democracy lies in protecting minority rights. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't necessarily make it true.

    At the end of the day, the initiative system seems to have two identities--a system where citizens can become lawmakers to right the wrongs of entrenched power, but also a seedy, carny identity where professional cranks and dubious signature-gathering factories trawl the streets to see if they can get lucky. If we didn't have folks watching the latter, we'd jeopardize the former.

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    I agree with you on most of your points Jeff, and you're correct that this real time info was very cool indeed.

    I do want to post a minor quibble. Your statement:

    the heart of democracy lies in protecting minority rights.

    Should read: The heart of a republic lies in protecting minority rights. Democracies like that of Athens can all legitimately get together and order dissenters to drink the Hemlock.....

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    Point taken, Professor Ryan...

  • Lisa Wolf (unverified)
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    But don’t forget -- the buck doesn’t stop with Parker Bell. Sure, he’s the guy handing out the undocumented cash for signatures, but someone’s writing him a big check at the end of the day, right?

    Aren’t the chief petitioners legally responsible for the practice of signature gathering that go on in support of their initiative? I believe that’s technically correct, and frankly that sounds fair to me. In this situation, Bill Sizemore, Ross Day and Russ Walker hired Parker Bell who’d already been caught red-handed for these kinds of violations.

    Just a thought -- If Parker Bell is a repeat offender in violating election and labor laws, shouldn’t he be put out of business for good?

  • CLP (unverified)
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    Wes is, to some degree, right. Human nature is to ignore the shortcomings of those we agree with. We ought to be careful to apply the same high standards to operations which collect signatures for ballot measures we agree with, as well as those we disagree with.

  • Robin (unverified)
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    CLP and friends

    This is one of your more phony endeavors.

    Your grandiose pretense that you are saving the state from election misdeeds when you are really just demonstrating your disdain for the good people of Oregon who legitimately sign legitimate petitions then vote for the ballot measure you oppose and have attempted to keep them from voting on.

    It is you who are the seedy. The dubious voter assailant factory trawling the streets to see if you can stop public votes. It's folks like you who jeopardize the State.

    There has yet to be shown a single initiative to reach the ballot because of fraudulent signatures. But many have missed the hurdle because your guy the SOS threw out thousands of valid signatures by registered Oregon voters. And you love it.

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    Actually it is county elections offices that typically do all the signature checking. As such, they're the ones throwing out the signatures.

    It's funny to watch the SOS often get the blame (or approval) for throwing out signatures when it's the elections officials (often an elected county clerk) who did it.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
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    It is just amazing that preventing elections fraud is a partisan issue.

    Preventing elections fraud is not a partisan issue. When it often becomes partisan is when it is used as a cover for measures to make it difficult for some people to register and vote. Because most Americans don't vote, who votes often determines who wins elections. If you can invent "counter-fraud" measures that discourage people likely to vote for your opponent its as good as registering and turning out your supporters. The things to reduce fraud that don't have partisan impact have long since been adopted.

  • Robin (unverified)
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    "It's funny to watch the SOS often get the blame"

    Ms. Jenni, Did yo just move here? Are you 19/ Or are you just BSing arund?

    The SOS made up rules which resulted in the tossing of tossing of countless whole sheets of signatures.

    Are you so dense you think someone here doesn't know who looks at the signatures?

    Funny.

  • Jesse O (unverified)
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    The Secretary of State is elected by the people, and given the power by the legislature, to adopt rules that guarantee the integrity of our elections. His actions are overseen by the courts, the legislature, and the elected voters.

    Let's talk about a specific rule that you think is wrong, and why you think it is both wrong and partisan.

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    Robin--

    I know exactly who looks at the signatures-- employees in county elections offices across the state.

    For the most part, these offices are overseen by the county clerk, who is an elected county official. Some, like Multnomah County, have a director of elections.

    The SOS may make the rules; however, he's not the one looking at all the signatures. It's not even his employees that are the ones typically doing verifications. And he doesn't just "make up" rules-- he sets the guidelines for petitions and these are known in advance. Follow them and your item can go on the ballot; don't follow them and your item won't.

    The rules are there and fairly easy to follow-- the problem is that groups (on both sides) haven't followed the rules and have had entire sheets thrown out. Or their sheets are filled with plenty of duplicates, obvious forgeries, addresses that don't exist, etc. Blue Oregon had an item on this, showing pages of petitions where entries were obvious fakes.

    As I said, I've worked in the county elections office and I know exactly who is looking at those signatures-- county employees, either permanent or temporary. The SOS may make the announcement that the signatures weren't accepted, but it was the county elections offices that did the leg work.

  • Ron Ledbury (unverified)
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    I still want to see someone pay 3 grand and include an insert in The Oregonian, to be signed and sent in. It would include room for one signature and thus not involve any circulator. It would thus provide no occasion for any complaint of circulator-inducement to commit fraud.

    The state interest is little more than to assure sufficient public interest to warrant the cost of placing an item on a ballot. See a Colorado case on signatures. The state interest is no different than when a public body hires a pollster to measure public support.

    In the classic formulation the court would demand that restrictions are narrowly tailored so as not to "burden" free speech rights. A mandatory use of circulators, rather than a mail-in thing, so as to potentially expose someone to criminal action is precisely the sort of impermissible burden that a court could and should invalidate. Fraud, if there be any, is observable from the sheets themselves, and amendable to verification through contact with any or all signors.

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    Robin keeps saying: There has yet to be shown a single initiative to reach the ballot because of fraudulent signatures.

    But, Robin, of course there has been. Bill Sizemore put a measure on the ballot that started out with nearly 100% fraudulent signatures on a prospective petition. That's why he was convicted of racketeering, and why he owes OEA and AFT millions of dollars.

    Sure, it's not the big petition - but the prospective petition is just as important a step in the process.

  • CLP (unverified)
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    Robin:

    You know what? You don't know me. You've never met me. You don't know my moviations at all.

    I am not interested in having legitimate signatures disqualified. I am not interested in making it impossible to get measures on the ballot, even ones I disagree with. And I certainly don't "love" (or even like) the idea of any legitimately-collected signature being thrown out. If legitimate signatures are being discarded, then I agree that's a problem.

    I can't stop you from thinking I'm an evil voter-obstructing jerk, but I think that's unfair considering you don't know me at all.

    There has yet to be shown a single initiative to reach the ballot because of fraudulent signatures. But many have missed the hurdle because your guy the SOS threw out thousands of valid signatures by registered Oregon voters.

    Really, do you have evidence that any measure had enough valid signatures but was not allowed on the ballot? Or do you just disagree with the sampling proceedures?

    I don't think we can know either of these things for sure. And that's the scary part: most of the time that people commit this kind of fraud, it is difficult to detect. That's why we remove a major incentive to commit such fraud, by not allowing signature collectors to be paid on a per-signature basis.

    Also, you never answered my question: suppose you disagree with me, and think this law is "bullshit". Does that mean these people should be allowed to just disreguard it?

  • David Delk (unverified)
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    Charles noted: "Couldn't help noticing that David Delk didn't actually answer the previous question about whether this was the same Parker Bell that they were using on the CFR campaign.

    "David's response seemed very spare and well parsed: "we are not using him" is not the same as "we haven't used him," i.e. before he went on to Freedomworks."

    Let me be more explicit for Charles: We haven't used Parker Bell and gang and we are not using him. Nor do we ever intent to use him.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
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    I still want to see someone pay 3 grand and include an insert in The Oregonian, to be signed and sent in.

    Marilyn and Jerry Wilson, the owners of Soloflex, sent a signature sheet to every registered voter in Oregon for their effort to close the Trojan nuclear power plant. It didn't work. As I recall, the mailing generated only about 40,000 signatures a little less than half those needed. They also tried hiring people by the hour and that worked better even though they used Kelly services to provide the people. In the end they paid for the last 10,000 signatures on a per signature basis form a signature gathering firm but those turned out to be insurance. They ended up with barely enough signatures to qualify just from the mailing, volunteers and per hour people. PGE announced plans to close Trojan shortly after the measure qualified.

  • (Show?)

    I still want to see someone pay 3 grand and include an insert in The Oregonian, to be signed and sent in.

    Interestingly, that would be illegal. Or, more accurately, the signatures wouldn't be valid. You have to collect the signatures on approved paper stock.

    Not even that glossy stuff that they use for political junk mail is legal. Pretty much has to be basic white printer paper.

  • Ron Ledbury (unverified)
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    "Interestingly, that would be illegal. Or, more accurately, the signatures wouldn't be valid."

    Those are two radically different propositions; which is precisely why I posed the factual issue.

    It is not illegal to go around getting signatures to seek redress of grievances. To conclude otherwise would be to construe that the single path to seeking redress is through the initiative campaign process.

    The significance of the signature requirement is confined to the rejection of signatures and refusal to place a matter on the ballot. I have a response letter from the SoS on that very issue, where they declined to go after me. The civil fines and the threat of criminal time (and the OEA judgment against Bill) are really all quite invalid; pending a proper case and proper advocate.

    The AG has refused in the past to take my bait with my flagrant and knowing refusal to comply with reporting requirements. Just for kicks, and specifically designed to attack the technical violations. If you want to make a public records request upon the AG's office and the SoS for all my correspondence I have no objection.

    Ross noted the practical limitation. But, one consideration is that signature gathering entities might actually like the requirement of high numbers of signatures and the need for circulators because it is good for business. I suppose it could also be called Economic Development because it requires the hiring of folks that might not otherwise have a job.

    It is all just soap opera stuff. The battles about the parameters of free speech were thoroughly vetted in the late 1950's and routinely and universally vindicated short of nearly all objections but for violence. Unless you are an alien as in Flemming v. Nestor, and get deported AND denied social security benefits for having once been a member of a presently disfavored political party.

    I have lost my Social Security potential because Congress choose to authorize the executive branch to write checks to bankers who do not like the inherent risk associated with capitalism. I am not even an alien. I hope that you would not begrudge me the freedom to seek redress, for myself and on behalf of all people that need assistance to afford an education or obtain fairly priced housing and food and medical care.

  • (Show?)

    Kari said:

    Or, more accurately, the signatures wouldn't be valid. You have to collect the signatures on approved paper stock.

    With an insert, don't you supply the items? So therefore you could supply the signature sheets on the approved paper stock that are then inserted into the paper.

    Of course you'd still have to do some legwork, as there are many people who don't get the paper-- our household doesn't, except on Sundays when we remember to run out and get one. You also have households with more than one voter in them. So only one person would be able to sign it.

    It might work a bit better if you also include all the smaller papers-- we do pick up the Gresham Outlook each week so we can have at least a little info about what's going on out here.

    But the fact is so few people actually get the newspaper anymore. Too bad those who want to couldn't print out a sheet from the web, fill it out, and mail it in. That might help you get some more signatures from people.

  • (Show?)

    Jenni, I stand corrected. I thought folks were talking about an ad, printed on newsprint. If the newspaper(s) would allow an insert of any paper stock, then sure, you could do that. Not sure if it's an effective method, though.

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    Oh, and the multiple-voters-in-a-household problem isn't actually a problem. A single petition has multiple signature lines.

  • (Show?)

    Kari--

    Yea, I don't know how effective it would be either. To be honest, I don't pay a lot of attention to the inserts in the paper. Maybe if there was a story in that day's paper tying in the fact that the insert was there. Otherwise, not many people would pay attention to it.

    Getting the word out in the week prior to the paper coming out would be essential as well.

    As far as the one signature goes, the person had suggested that the insert would have room for one signature. If it were done, I'd recommend having room for more than one signature.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
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    1) If I recall correctly, the person signing the petition also has to sign as the circulator who witnessed the signature. Both are required to make the petition valid. So if you have multiple lines, one person has to witness the other signatures in the household.

    2) People signing the petitions have to be registered voters. Some people who get the newspaper are and some aren't. I think campaigns mostly use direct mail rather than newspaper inserts in part for that reason. Of course most campaigns also target a subset of voters.

    3) I suspect the number of bad signatures (people not registered to vote, non-residents, fake names etc) you receive from a newspaper insert would make the process of validation difficult. Unless you validated them yourself before turning them in you could easily find yourself with not enough valid signatures.

    I think the largest potential for fraud is not phony signatures but the misleading descriptions provided to people signing some intiatives. Pay per signature gave a huge incentive to circulators to try to say whatever it took to get people to sign, whether it was accurate or not. Some circulators got incredibly inventive whether the campaign encouraged them to or not.

  • (Show?)

    It may make things easier if we:

    1) make sure that every voter gets a copy of their voter registration card, with their voter id number on it

    2) ask for the voter id number along with their signature & info. In Texas that was on our petitions. This would help to decrease the time it takes to verify signatures-- you can pull up the voter's info in the computer without having to figure out their name first.

  • Patty (unverified)
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    For those of you keeping track of the breaking news:

    After all the excitement of last Thursday, things are quiet here now. B & P Campaign Mgt has moved out. Word is that they are back to working out of the downtown branch of the Multnomah County Library.

    Now we're waiting to see how investigations from the Oregon State Elections office and Bureau of Labor and Industries unfold.

    While we wait, let's do a story problem.

    The question that got buried in the news coverage of the complaints that were filed last week: Who will be held responsible for the laws that are being broken here and what fines might they face?

    So far, there are two areas of violations – violation of Measure 26 and violation of wage and hour laws.

    Let’s break it down.

    First, the Election Law violation, that is, violating the ban on pay per signature. Based on precedent, the fine for that is $100 per signature sheet. That’s what Parker Bell, (one of the managers at B & P) paid in 2004 for violating Measure 26.

    We believe that based on the evidence gathered all the signatures gathered by paid circulators on 14, 23, 24 and 57 were gathered illegally – in violation of Measure 26. So how do those fines add up?

    Using the dates the petitions were qualified and a typical signature-gathering rate of 2,000 signatures per week (and 7.2 signatures per page), we're looking at a combined total of $1.58 million in fines for these three measure sponsors (FreedomWorks, OIA and Bill Sizemore). The breakdown is $1.16 for FreedomWorks, $222,2200 for Sizemore and $194,000 for Oregonians in Action.

    Whether the measure sponsors or Tim Trickey of Democracy Direct or B & P pays this remains to be seen. It is our understanding, however, that under Measure 26, the petition sponsors bear the ultimate responsibility.

    The second area of violations is in state wage and hour laws and legally required payroll reporting. There have been at least three wage and hour claims filed from signature gatherers that we know of. There may be more. And as the word spreads that people aren’t getting paid what they are owed, we expect that number to climb. So far, the folks we have talked to that have filed claims are very consistent in stating that no one who worked for B & P/Democracy Direct were paid legally. The fines for these violations are steep. In addition to owing back wages, the employers could be fined $1,000 per day PER EMPLOYEE for failure to keep payroll and other records and failure to supply employees with itemized statements of amounts paid and purposes of deductions taken. Given that hundreds of people have already gathered signatures for B&P/Democracy Direct, the companies are facing a very hefty fine. There may also be violations of failure to pay minimum wage in some cases.

    And there will be more to come, we believe, from the IRS and Oregon Department of Revenue as well as the Employment Department and Workers Comp.

    So stay tuned.

  • Ron Ledbury (unverified)
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    "Let’s break it down."

    Formulaic crafting and implementation of statutes pertaining to speech are routinely overturned. It is nothing new.

    The process issue should all be agonizingly mundane.

    Silencing a loudmouth young progressive: Feiner v. New York (see the Black dissent). Silencing leaflets from race baiter: Beauharnais v. Illinois (see the Black dissent again). Beauharnais reads like blog, with a majority opinion and then a bunch of long individual dissents. Justice Jackson's dissent might help to illuminate the reasoning behind the application of Oregon's constitutional right to a remedy for libel, direct from the constitution itself, and its relationship to the First Amendment and free speech.

    Feel free to criticize their posts.

    Back to the avoidance of any need whatsoever for any circulator . . .

    The Nader thing revealed a problem with having more than one signature on a sheet. One bad one and the SoS thought it wise to construe that they were all bad and tossed the whole sheet.

    The more-than-one-signature-thing also likely triggers the requirement for a circulator's signature where they must claim to have witnessed the signing of others. If there is a circulator's signature then, technically as per statute (notwithstanding the SoS), there is no requirement other than the signature alone . . no date requirement at all, nor address nor printed name nor anything else whatsoever. Still, I suppose that a sheet could hold the full information from two or three signors (with room for those omitted things) and without any spot at all for a circulator. Yet, the inconsistent number of signors per sheet for a stack of sheets would complicate doing statistical sampling of sheets (which is just a convenience kind of thing).

    I suppose the SoS could chose to treat an entire set of data in like manner to that of multiple signatures on a sheet, and toss an entire petition if one signature is rejected as "potentially" fraudulent. The reasoning for rejecting a single sheet or the whole submission is virtually indistinguishable.

    I would feel no shame in saving Bill's ass or that of the current target so as to save my own ass. It is compatible with my near-religious belief in free speech.

  • Matt (unverified)
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    Ugh - the argument that a group monitoring signature gathering is preventing Oregonians from voting is so very tired.

    If the sponsors of these iniatives want to get their issue on the ballot - RUN A GOOD OPERATION. If the public turns out in overwhelming numbers to support it, its hard to argue over a small percentage of signatures. If they don't do their job, then the small number of signatures comes into play.

    That is why it is important to monitor the process. Because half-assed companies, shilling for anyone will inevitably get something on the ballot by less-than-legitimate means. I'd rather have a process that places the honus on the campaign; prove to us that your issue deserves a spot on the ballot - its sacred space for some of us who value our freedom.

    Also, ask anyone who has voted in the last 8-10 elections if they feel like ballot measures are really being kept away from them. Some of the issues at play have already been voted on multiple times. Its not like there is a lack of discourse on these issues.

    Regardless of political stripe, it comes down to this: can you win with the public or not. If an organization can't truly mobilize enough support, then they won't win out. That's how it works. Its down right facist to assume that your ballot measure deserves to become law without running a vigorous campaign.

    The ones who are complaining right now should maybe suck it up and get in the ring, manage a decent campaign. Win or lose, you should welcome the public scrutiny because it will hopefully give us something we need - an honest debate...

  • Ron Ledbury (unverified)
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    Matt, did you assume that I was somehow not neutral as to the potential outcome of some eventual measure that gets stuck in a committee or referred to the voters by a legislative body or advanced by an initiative campaign?

    A petition does not require consent. Placement on a ballot can involve a few hoops. Yet the burden always remains on the state to demonstrate a compelling state interest for imposing burdens on speech, and to exclude the acceptability of alternative measures that are narrowly tailored to the compelling state interest. A circulator-free option is just such a possibility; among other possibilities each of which do not remotely carry the risk of fines or criminal time or the risk of suit for the speech costs of an opponent. Can arbitrary authority be exercised as though it were characterizable as neutral just because one possible ad hoc rationalization in court can sound reasonable? Nearly every side in a disagreement can generate at least one rational argument and thus no side's position can be considered absurd as a matter of law.

    You closed debate with some notion of fascism. There are many flavors of national socialists. You could take that debate to the wikipedia:Fascism site to bring clarity to their debate on what it means.

    I am concerned with preserving the rights of individuals against interest groups, and their battles, that routinely render the individual irrelevant. That, and the need for the equal privileges and immunities clause to afford every individual no less than that which is accorded to any of the various incorporated entities (and their interested beneficiaries) that have been spawned over the years. I would like to assume that you share this goal.

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