Ballot measure descriptions confuse student voters
Students find the voter’s
pamphlet unhelpful in
clarifying initiatives
By Eric Collins
Oregon Daily Emerald
Paul Rogers sat down with his
vote-by-mail ballot, opened his
Oregon Measures Voter’s Pam
phlet and delved into the process.
It wasn’t so easy.
The 20-year-old biology junior
was hit with 14 initiatives he
knew little about.
Measure 63 especially troubled
him. He read, “A yes vote allows
passage of greater-than-majority
voting requirements only by
equally large majority.”
Huh?
So he formed a strategy.
“If I find a measure that I can’t
understand very easily, I just say
no because it may be another way
that they can take away my rights
or somebody else’s rights,” he
said. "There’s a lot of them in here
that I read over, I didn’t under
stand it, and so I said no.”
Not all students follow this
strategy, but a random sampling of
University students showed that
they too knew little else than med
ical marijuana, stiffer penalties for
marijuana possession and clear
cuts and forest practices on this
year’s ballot. However, advocates
r
i
of the political process have ad
vice for confused voters: vote what
you know and take the time to un
derstand the issues that will di
rectly affect you.
While Rogers had already voted
no on Measure 63, his two friends
sitting next to him outside the
EMU Monday were still making
up their minds. They read the
measure’s ex
and
used
at it
who
it.
Re
gu
can
Bill
Sizemore’s
name as a committee member, bio
chemistry junior Laura Breshears,
23, thought he sponsored the bill.
Saying she always disagreed
with the initiatives that Sizemore
has supported in the past, she said
she’d probably vote “no” on the
measure.
“He does this every year,” she
said, shaking her head.
But on careful reading of the
voter’s pamphlet, one sees that
Oregon Taxpayers United spon
sored the opposition to the mea
sure. Sizemore happens to be ex
ecutive director of the
organization. So voting “no”
planation
were confi
about wh.
did and
supported
Seeing
publican
bematorial
didate
i
would actually cause Breshears to
vote in agreement with Sizemore.
Would other voters make the
same mistakes?
David Buchanan thinks prob
lems lie in the explanatory state
ments and on the confusion of the
outcome of “yes" and “no” votes.
Buchanan, executive director of
Oregon Common Cause — a na
tionally affiliated organization
that lobbies for campaign finance
reform as well as monitors the gov
ernment, voter registration and
election laws — said while the ex
planatory statement is supposed
to be impartial and agreed upon by
both sides, it sometimes doesn’t
help a voter.
“Usually those two sentences
are mirror images, and they don’t
say what the voter needs to know
about it,” said Buchanan, whose
organization is in favor of Measure
63.
Then there’s the problem of
what a "yes” and “no” vote accom
plishes, Buchanan said. These
days, a “yes” vote can mean no
and a “no” vote can mean yes, he
explained. He pointed to Measure
53, on the ballot last May, which
asked voters to keep or eliminate
the 50 percent voter turnout re
quirement. If voters said yes, they
would be saying no to the turnout
requirement. But if they said no,
they would be keeping the turnout
requirement.
If a voter such as Rogers were to
just say no out of frustration, he
would be saying yes to the turnout
requirement. In fact, Buchanan
sees “confusion” as a legitimate
campaign strategy for a measure’s
opposition. Measures can be vot
ed down because the opposition
depicts the measure as uncertain
and confusing.
Buchanan advises voters to con
sider that they have three choices
in each measure: yes, no or none. If
they don’t feel that an issue war
rants their time to understand it,
they can just not vote on it.
“I think that’s rational and just
a legitimate part of democracy as
voting is,” he said.
The Oregon Student Associa
tion has singled out a few of the 14
measures they do think warrant a
student’s time in the October OSA
Outlook. Not advocating any po
litical position on the measures,
the OSA has published a voter’s
guide highlighting the pre-paid tu
ition, vote-by-mail and other mea
sures that have the potential out
come to affect higher education.
Measure 59’s supposed impact
on student incidental fees does
not appear in it. However, lawyers
have said the measure would af
fect the use of student incidental
fees on state university campuses.
In the opinion of Paul Gamson
or Smith, Garrison, Diamond & Ol
ney Attorneys in Portland, Mea
sure 59 would prohibit student
fees to be used for “political pur
poses." This could limit the
ASUO’s ability to lobby state legis
lators about university funding
and tuition rates, he writes. It
could also mean candidate de
bates sponsored by campus
groups wouldn’t be allowed, since
the debates would be much like
political statements in the state’s
voter’s pamphlet.
“Student groups would no
longer be free to decide how to
best use their funds,” Gamson
wrote in a statement.
Although this outcome “is not
listed as one of the things [Mea
sure 59] would do,” Shaun Sieren,
organizing director for OSA, said
students should be aware of the
measure’s possible impact.
The OSA is also advising stu
dents to look at the financial im
pact of measures and consider
them as a potential competitor for
higher education funding.
With all the advice regarding
how to vote, Buchanan suggests
going on instincts is legitimate too.
He said he’s seen a tendency in
young people to think, “If I haven’t
done enough studying, I shouldn’t
vote.” However, he says that vot
ing based on what you already
know and think is just as valid.
Cash
for books
Everyday.
Always buying texts,
paperbacks, cliff votes,
current magazines. . .
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