Petition seeks ban on last-day voter registration
By Brooks Dareff
Of the Emerald
An initiative is afoot that pro
poses cutting off Oregon voter
registration twenty days before an
election.
Since 1975 Oregon voters have
been allowed to register right up
until the closing of polls.
If implemented, this initiative
would curtail voter participation,
says Oregon Student Lobby Direc
tor Sherry Oeser, who fears
"students in particular could be
adversely affected."
Many people only start thinking
about elections a few weeks in ad
vance, says Oeser, and this may
be especially true of the historical
ly unparticipatory 18-25 age group.
A 20-day cutoff could particular
ly affect student participation in
the November general elections,
Oeser says. Since many students
take up new residences in the fall
— and voters are required to re
register if they change address —
a new registration limit would
mean many of these voters would
have to register only several
weeks after arriving in town.
The initiative, spearheaded by a
political action group called
Oregonians in Action, is in the
petition stage now. If 83,000
signatures are tallied by July 1984,
the initiative would appear as a
constitutional amendment on the
general election ballot next
November.
With about 20,000 fewer
signatures, the initiative could be
placed on the ballot as a statutory
rather than a constitutional
amendment, says John Reuling,
special counsel to Attorney
General Dave Frohnmayer. The
1975 bill rescinding the 20-day
cutoff is statutory, and therefore
reversible, through statutory
channels.
In Oregon a bill or initiative can
only become constitutional if it
survives a popular referendum.
The idea for a petition-based in
itiative emerged following the
regular legislative session, in
which several bills attempting to
rescind the 1975 bill died with the
session in August, says Secretary
of State Norma Paulus, a sup
porter of a 20-day cutoff.
Members of OIA, based in
Wilsonville, include Rep. Donna
Zajonc, R-Salem, who is also a
member of the State Legislature
Elections Committee.
The reasons for turning back the
clock to 1975 are two-fold, Paulus
says.
County clerks object to the ad
ministrative overload that has
resulted from no cutoff time, and
they and others are concerned
about the up-to-the-last-minute
potential for residency fraud.
Emerald graphic
As a general trend, says Paulus,
the increased mobility of modern
society has made it difficult for
anyone to pinpoint a person's per
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manent residence. Last-minute
registration gives clerks no time to
check for any kind of residence
legitimacy and presumably offers
advocates of one cause or can
didate ample opportunity to hop
from county to county cuckolding
the clerks.
One situation that exhibited the
particular inadequacy of current
Oregon voter registration law,
says Paulus, was one which was
allowed to develop during the
dissolution of Antelope and the
incorporation of Rajneeshpuram.
While the Rajineeshies met the re
quirements of residency law, the
non-resident Antelope supporters
who came in droves in an attempt
to pack the vote, did not. While
the aliens were eventually
dissuaded by state authorities, a
20-day cutoff law would nip
Antelope-like problems in the
bud, Paulus says.
The failure of Oregon courts to
address the legal definition of
residency has not clarified an
already blurry situation, Paulus
adds.
Oeser maintains that the very
mobility of society makes it all the
more discriminatory to prevent in
dividuals (especially particularly
mobile people like students) from
registering after a specified cutoff
time.
While a cutoff law might
decrease residency fraud, it would
also disenfranchise legitimate
voters, she says.
Oeser believes a bill sponsored
by Common Cause in the 1983
regular legislative session could
have adequately addressed the
question of fraud. In the event of a
close race, the Common Cause
bill would have required in
vestigation of the residency claims
of all voters who registered not
more than ten days before that
particular election. Such a law
would have allowed authorities to
attack fraud, she says, rather than
the assumption of fraud.
Paulus opposed that bill, she
says, because it would have added
to an already cumbersome
burden suffered by the county
clerks.
Oeser believes, on the other
hand, that the system should be
set up for the electorate and not
to accommodate the bureaucracy.
"Why cut people out of the pro
cess?" Oeser asks. "We're sup
posed to be living in a
democracy."
Paulus insists she is not ad
vocating executing the former.
As a state legislator Paulus work
ed on — and for — the 1975 bill
eliminating the cutoff date, inten
ding, like others, to increase voter
participation in the midst of the
"voter malaise that settled over
this country following
Watergate." But she has since
come aboutface on the issue, she
says, because the bill was un
sucessful in its intent. Total voter
participation has not increased
since 1975, she says. Paulus could
not, however, supply any figures
that showed the effect eliminating
the cutoff date had on student
voter registration.
Paulus supported the suc
cessful 1983 vote-by-mail bill, in
tended to accommodate, in par
ticular, the elderly, the disabled
and those living in rural areas far
removed from convenient voting
booths. In contrast to dropping a
cutoff date, vote-by-mail has ex
tended voter participation, she
says.
Oeser finds it "ironic" and
somewhat baffling that sup
porters of vote-by-mail could con
currently support restoring; a
20-day cutoff on voter registration.
Vote-by-mail extends voter par
ticipation, whereas a 20-day
registration cutoff would limit it,
and the potential for fraud she
says is much greater through the
mail.
"To me their arguments are just
not valid.
House, Senate works
to break tax logjam
SALEM (AP) — An Oregon House
and Senate negotiating committee
is resuming its work on a new
compromise plan that's aimed at
breaking the logjam over property
tax relief.
Saying that things are "beginn
ing to jell” on the new plan,
House Speaker Grattan Kerans on
Wednesday reappointed House
members to the negotiating
panel.
Kerans said that committee and
others would begin work today on
the plan proposed Tuesday by
Gov. Vic Atiyeh. But the Eugene
Democrat stopped short of
forecasting that the sales tax
based plan would be approved by
the Legislature.
"I'm no longer in the business
of predicting," said Kerans, who
saw his own tax relief proposal
defeated 35-23 by the House last
weekend after he said he thought
he could muster the votes to pass
it.
Kerans had discharged House
members of the joint conference
committee after the House action.
Under Atiyeh's plan, the
Legislature would approve a pro
posed ballot measure for a 4 per
cent retail sales tax.
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