PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A lawsuit filed on behalf of Portland voters who signed a failed ballot initiative to hire more Portland police officers using climate tax dollars is asking a federal judge to compel a recount of the signatures gathered.
The lawsuit claims the Portland City Elections Division and Multnomah County Elections Division used an “arbitrary” process to disqualify signatures from the ballot initiative.
“The process started in the City of Portland where Defendant Rede (Simone Rede, City of Portland Auditor) and her agents threw out hundreds of petition sheets (and the thousands of voter signatures that accompanied them) based on an arbitrary conclusion that the Petition’s circulators had mismatched signatures or had dates that were overwritten,” the lawsuit claims…