Leveling The Playing Field
The Oregon elections office is doing it's level best to, well... level the playing field and violate the constitutional right of nearly 15,000 Oregon citizens. Story here. Also RINO has been following the process.
Our good friends at Orbusmax, at their Orblog have been chronicling a like scenario in Washington State.
The scoop is that after you collect your signatures and turn them in to the state elections officials those hundreds of thousands of signatures are orphaned and left at the mercy of an elected official who is most likely opposed to your issue.
Now in Oregon we have this story about how the elections office has tossed out about 15,000 citizen signatures.
To be honest I have known about this for quite some time and so has the SOS's office. The reason the story is breaking now is because the elections office knows that they have a problem on their hands. They reached the anti-democratic conclusion the other day to violate the First Amendment rights of nearly 15,000 Oregon citizens and now they are going to be called on it. That means they need to start some kind of PR offensive to try to save face.
Enter the The Oregonian as the official mouthpiece of Sec. State Bradbury. Oregonian reporter Dave Hogan has allowed himself to be the conduit of the anti-First Amendment folks.
Sec. State Bradbury is crying foul that somehow the petitions have become sloppy in their gathering. Uh... excuse me Mr. Bradbury but you have added more and more administrative rules to what has been a pretty simple procedure for close to a hundred years. Heck the same folks have gathered signatures in other states and done just fine thank you.
Why is it that Oregon has some of the lowest validity rates in the nation? Why is it that Oregon is one of the costliest states to circulate a petition in the nation?
Why is it that 15,000 citizen signatures, turned in to the elections office are at risk of being invalidated? It would be interesting if 15,000 Oregonians were to show up at the State Capital and ask if their First Amendment rights are being violated. "You mean to tell me that my First Amendment rights are not safe, in of all places, the STATE ELECTIONS OFFICE? I mean if I can't trust the Secretary of State to protect my First Amendment rights then WHO can I trust?"
So now you know why suddenly the SoS Bradbury is embarking on this new PR offensive. He knows that he may have crossed the line and violated the rights of thousands of Oregon citizens with his "administrative rules."
Of course if this is not YOUR issue then he is hoping you will ignore it and just let it run it's course, and your initiative rights will have taken another costly hit.
yip yip
Posts
7 comments:
...."Oregonian reporter Dave Hogan has allowed himself to be the conduit of the anti-First Amendment folks."
A perfect job for Hogan --the "trustworthy reporter"....
Hogan should hook up with Patty Wentz. They'd make an adorable couple.
I've speculated that the systematic efforts of the SOS office to obstruct the initiative process is similar legally as the voter registration obstruction in the 60's by southern SOS offices.
Though at a distance it looks different the legal argument could likely be made that Federal due process has been violated. Making it difficult for out of state petition circulators to engage citizens in the electoral process is a violation of a sancrosanct liberty under the US Constitution.
Under the law it would seem very similar to obstructing the right of out of state Voter Registrar's to get people of color registered to vote.
More so to the point is the consistent public criticism of the initiative and regulatory clamp down on petition circulators violates the civil rights guidelines established by the Supreme Court.
Bill Bradbury is openly opposed to the initiative, campaigned on it, and now public speaks in opposition to the measures he oversees onto the ballot. Kind of a conflict of interest. Sorta like a judge expressing predetermined opinion prior to hearing a case (as SOS Bradbury acts quasi-judicially in rule determinations and processes).
My, my, my. The conspracy theories abound. I wonder if it were the prescription drug measure or the health care initiative that had been denied the signatures, would there be so much whining on this board? No. Yeah, that's what I thought.
Face it Coyote and Dare, the term limits idiots screwed up bigtime. Their paid petition circulator turned in the term limits signatures with the spending limit signatures. Big oops.
Bradbury, like him of despise him -- and I happen to despise him, simply applied existing law. This wasn't a matter of making up the rules as you go along.
Now, the term limits people probably agree with you that Bradbury will do anything he can to stifle their efforts. Actually, I agree with you. I figure Bradbury will take any advantage he can get. So the term limits people should have dotted all the i's and crossed alll the t's. They didn't. They screwed up majroly. They pay the price.
If it's found that the same thing happened on Bradbury favored petitions and the rule wasn't applied then you have cause to complain. Until then, put a sock in it.
I would have a problem if prescription drug or health care initiative circulators were denied equal access to their rights.
I also don't deny that they should have managed their operations a little tighter.
Regardless, the inconsistent and ever rising bar to qualify a ballot measure has been passing through a constitutional no-mans land since Kitzhaber was governor and actively opposed M7 as the executive responsible for representing the will of the people of Oregon.
This no-care attitude for direct democratically enacted legislation reminds me similarly of those opposition to reforms in the south under Jim Crow. Its blatant and open disregard for voter's rights.
The Term limit people only turned in approx. 3,000 to 4,000 of the Spending limit signatures, which means the SoS found reason to toss out another 11,000 to 12,000. What is even crazier is that the Term limit and spending limit chief petitioners were all in the SoS office when the signatures were submitted, submitting signatures simultaneously.
The SoS office threw out signatures because...
- The date in the circulator section was later than that of the individual signers.
- A paid circulator’s signature, after signing 20 or 30 sheets, had changed.
- Based upon the individual workers estimate the circulator’s signature was a fake
- A paid circulator worked for only a short period of time in Oregon and the campaign did not have an “exemplar” of their actual signature
- There was white out anywhere on the circulator signature or date
- The Circulator date was re-dated incorrectly
- The Circulator signature or date was crossed out (even if it was re-signed)
Does that mean that the individual that signed the petition incorrectly signed it or that they are not actually a voter? No, these administrative rules disenfranchise the voters because of a technicality. Based upon 150,828 “unverified signatures” that slipped through the SoS office, the term limits campaign need a validity rate of at least 66.9% to make the ballot.
Consequently, the SoS office also threw out just over 9,000 signatures on the health care initiative. This process is so corrupt that even the Liberal petitions have trouble following the strict asinine rules of the SoS. It’s not that Bradbury is Liberal or even further liberal, it’s that he wants to ensure that the only power in the state is the legislature and to force the residents of Oregon to their will.
Why? Bradbury did so because individually drew the lines and boundaries for every Representative and Senate district in the state to favor Dems. You need to turn no further for proof than that of Senator Ferrioli’s district (encompassing 1/4 of the land mass of Oregon) or Senator Atkinson’s which was drawn out of his district.
If tampering with initiative signatures is suspected in Oregon, then it seems very possible that the same should be suspected in WA for Initiative-917, sponsored by Tim Eyman. How do an estimated 30,000 signatures disappear ? I suspect it could be a screwup (purposeful or accidental), just like King County had occur during the 2004 Governor election - when 10,000 ballots were found in a big box in the corner of the Elections office late in the initial count. No surprise that most of them were Democrat. Even though the SOS in WA has an R beside his name, he is a RINO if there ever was one.
Those 1,800 signature sheets?
The SoS should at most have simply refused to accept them. After which they could have been submitted by the party that the SoS insisted must personally deliver them.
If he has a beef with the chain of custody, then what about signature sheets that travel through ordinary mail? What if a box with a pile of signature sheets were in a trunk of a car that is stolen, taken for a joy ride, and later recovered?
I think the guy needs medication, really.
Adam -- "simply applied existing law" [to toss out 1800 rather than simply return them]
Huh? What part of the bloody statutes or rules did you find to back that one up?
The law spells out that the signatures belong to the chief petitioners. They have the right to even use the signature even if a signor later changes their mind.
Adam -- "Until then, put a sock in it."
Go work for the SoS's office as it sounds like you will fit right in making up excuses and calling it law.
Should each sheet have a separate, signed, accompanying certification documenting the chain of custody? My god, this kind of stuff has entered the realm of surreal.
--pdxnag
Post a Comment