With time growing short in the 2006 petition cycle, signature gatherers are working hard to obtain the 75,630 valid signatures needed (100,840 signatures for a constitutional amendment) to secure placement of their proposals on the November 2006 General Election ballot. A total of 29 petitions have been approved for circulation from the 165 petitions filed during the 2006 cycle. Oregon’s Special Session of the Legislative Assembly took two proposed initiatives out of circulation, leaving 27 proposals currently circulating with the “potential” to reach the November 2006 ballot.

However, before worrying about the length of this year’s ballot, it is worth remembering that even for the petitions approved for circulation much earlier in the cycle, the task of collecting the required number of valid signatures is not an easy one. To assure the necessary number of “valid” signatures, proponents of an initiative must obtain substantially more than the required number of signatures. There is no way of knowing the exact status of any of the petitions until after July 7th, when the signed petitions are submitted to the Secretary of State’s office and the Elections Division has time to review and certify the validity of the signatures.

2008 Petition Cycle Begins
While most voters are more interested in the petitions potentially headed to the 2006 General Election ballot, 23 initiative petitions have already been filed for the 2008 General Election. Interestingly, 19 of these petitions include the familiar name of Bill Sizemore as one of the chief petitioners. It is also interesting to note that several of these petitions deal with the initiative petition process itself. For example:
•    Petition #1 (2008) limits grounds for rejecting signatures and modifies the procedures for verifying signatures by eliminating the requirement that circulators witness each signature; requiring examinations of each signature submitted and prohibiting statistical sampling.
•    Petition #4 (2008) would amend the Constitution to allow specified initiatives to include a provision stating that no Oregon court may nullity them except on the grounds they violate the U.S. Constitution.
•    Petition #11 (2008) would amend the constitution to allow paying petition circulators on a per signature basis and establish criminal penalties for signature forgery and identity theft.
•    Petition #8 (2008) is an amendment to Oregon’s Constitution to allow an initiative petition to amend more than one provision of the constitution, if closely related and voters are informed in the official ballot title. The petition also provides that court challenges to such petition may only be filed within 30 days of when the initiative was filed with the Secretary of State and must be decided before the petition is circulated for signatures.

The 2008 petitions have until July 3, 2008 to collect the necessary signatures. The required number of signature to place an initiative on the 2008 General Election ballot will be determined by the total votes cast for all candidates for governor at the 2006 General Election.