NEWS ADVISORY
February 23, 2006
CONTACTS:
City of Portland - Susan Francois 503-823-3546
Secretary of State - Anne Martens 503-986-1502
Multnomah County - Shawn Cunningham 503-988-4369
Review of Signature Verification Process
PORTLAND, OREGON - CITY HALL -- Multnomah County, City of Portland and State of Oregon elections officials have discovered a technological error in the Oregon Centralized Voter Registration (OCVR) system and a procedural error that may have an impact on the certified results of the ballot measure initiative petition to repeal the City's public campaign finance program.
As soon as officials became aware of the potential errors, the parties undertook cooperative efforts to rectify the errors and carefully review the petition to ensure that every valid signature is counted.
Multnomah County has requested state assistance in ensuring that all election laws and procedures are followed. Multnomah County is conducting a thorough review of all the information related to this issue and will send the City of Portland a new official certification of the results as soon as this review process is completed. Once the review is complete and Multnomah County’s findings are presented to the City of Portland, City officials will release those findings.
If the review by the County and State elections officials results in a certification that the petition does contain the required 26,691 valid signatures, the City would follow City Code provisions for qualified measures. The Auditor would file the measure for Council discussion at the March 15 City Council meeting. If Council does not adopt the Ordinance, the Auditor would certify the measure to the County Elections Offices by the March 16 deadline for placement on the May ballot.
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