Controversy surrounding a ballot initiative that would divert funds from Portland’s Clean Energy Fund to hire more police officers continues to grow—and has now spawned a quarrel between Oregon’s Secretary of State and the Portland Auditor’s Office.
The Enhanced Community Safety ballot initiative, also dubbed the “Safer Portland” measure first drew major attention in June, when the Mercury reported complaints filed against the initiative’s backers over the signature gathering process, including allegations that canvassers misled the public about the measure in order to garner signatures. Additional complaints continued to surface suggesting signature gatherers made illegal procedural missteps during the course of their work. Now, the initiative’s backers are alleging city elections officials are mishandling the process and applying political bias as thousands of the petition’s signatures have been deemed invalid during the verification process.
Nearly 60,000 signatures were submitted in an effort to get the measure on the November ballot and are now undergoing a standard verification process. The Multnomah County Elections Office, which handles signature verification for the city, reported Tuesday that its first statistical sampling indicated petitioners had only submitted 32,880 valid signatures–a result that falls short of the 40,437 signatures needed to qualify the petition to the ballot. A second sampling is currently underway…