SB 1510A Restricts Initiative Petition Process

This bill amends state election laws for the citizen’s Initiative petition process by limiting the signature gathering period, making it more difficult for an initiative to qualify.

Personal Choice and Responsibility
Interferes with personal choices: Limits the authority of the Secretary of State to accept more than 2000 signatures collected from prospective initiative petitions, which appears to be intended to block rulemaking that sought to allow petitioners to gather signatures during ballot title challenges because of the frequent use of lawsuits to reduce the period available for signature-gathering on initiative petitions. Bans the Secretary Of State from allowing the gathering of signatures on sheets with full certified ballot title approved by the Attorney General, if the ballot title is subject to review by the Oregon Supreme Court, expressly prohibits the issuance of an official template, until the ballot title certified by the Court can be included. Challenges in the Oregon Supreme Court currently takes on average 4 months. If signature sheets cannot proceed on the basis of the certified ballot title, petitioners must completely halt signature gathering during the entire ballot title challenge period. There is no reason for this new prohibition except to hamper citizen challenges. Potential ballot fraud taking votes from legitimate candidates by allowing candidate to remain on the ballot if died, withdrawn or is not qualified to hold office when less than 61 days before election.

Limited Government
Permits non-affiliated electors who requests a party ballot for a major political party must complete an application; allows candidate committees to provide the name of the committee’s financial institution within 5 business day of filing their initial statement of organization; extends deadlines for write-in candidates to receive and file the write-in acceptance form; protects enumerated information in elector’s registration file from public disclosure, while requiring other enumerated information in file to be provided in publicly available lists maintained by Secretary of State and county clerks; directs Secretary of State to maintain and update list that identifies electors who have and have not cast ballot during election period and make list available each business day during election period; and clarifies and cleans up language.