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."

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Are these the same guys that Dan Meek hired to collect signatures for his campaign finance measure?

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.

"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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

To answer the question regarding Dan Meek and the Campaign Finance Reform initiative using the Parker Bell gang, we are not using them.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Personally, I love vote by male. This nation has gone steadily downhill since we gave women the vote.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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...

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.