...Forged signatures propel anti-union ballot measures
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measure she said she opposes, or did
he copy her signature from other
sheets?
Rachel Ashmun of Northeast Port-
land says she only signs petitions that
pertain to environmental causes. But
her name and address appear on a
measure to limit attorneys fees. Shown
the sheet with her signature on it, she
says she doesn’t recognize it as her
own. Due to illness, her hand shakes,
giving her signature a distinct appear-
ance that the signature on the sheet
doesn’t have. But someone named
“Cairo” listing an address in Los
Alamitos, California, signed at the bot-
tom of the page swearing he/she wit-
nessed the signature.
Frank Hood of Southeast Portland
frequently rides the MAX to pick up
his granddaughter, and says he re-
members being approached on the
train by a circulator, presumably Ver-
non Van. Van, who has a Long Beach,
California, address, signed swearing
he witnessed Hood’s signature on the
teacher pay initiative. Hood told Our
Oregon that although he signed several
of the petitions, he disagrees with and
did not sign the teacher pay initiative.
Marilyn Dale of Southwest Port-
land told the NW Labor Press she did-
n’t remember signing anything about
teacher pay. Yet her name appears on
Justin Schoenleber’s petition sheet for
the initiative, dated Dec. 21. All the
addresses on the page are in the same
person’s handwriting. Dale said that
though the signature resembles hers, at
least three details prove it’s not her real
signature. Dale said she may have
signed another petition when she was
approached outside the Beaverton li-
brary. Was it traced onto another
sheet? Reached by the NW Labor
Press, Schoenleber said he worked that
library in November and December,
but vigorously denied any wrongdo-
ing. Schoenleber explained his method
to the Labor Press. He would start with
the most popular initiative, and ask the
signer to print their name and write out
their address next to their signature.
Sanita
clogs
Then he would ask them to sign other
sheets, onto which he would copy the
other information. [That practice was
legal until January 2008, when a new
law aimed at initiative abuse took ef-
fect.]
“Typically I’ll say, ‘there’s a couple
more items that require your signa-
ture,’” Schoenleber said, “and the con-
stituents may not even ask what they
are signing.”
The Our Oregon complaint also in-
cluded an affidavit from a lawyer in
Bend who believes he witnessed a
paid petitioner violating the new law.
On June 20, Tim Williams saw a man
and a woman outside the downtown
Bend post office gathering signatures
for a measure that would limit attor-
neys fees. He asked
the woman her name,
and she said “Angela
White.” When he
asked the man his
name, it was the
woman who an-
swered — “Brian
Schrier.” Williams
said the two seemed
nervous about the interac-
tion.
The law now requires paid petition-
ers to register with the state, provide a
photo, and swear they have no recent
convictions for fraud or identity theft.
Back at his office, Williams checked it
out. The man with White looked noth-
ing like the photo on file for Schrier.
The next day, Williams saw White
gathering signatures, this time with the
real Schrier.
Altogether, the circulators named in
the Our Oregon complaint gathered
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
signatures for at
least nine initia-
tive petition
campaigns.
“We be-
lieve that be-
cause the same
circulators
were collect-
ing signatures
for [other]
initiative peti-
tions …,” the
group wrote in
the complaint
“you will
upon investi-
gation,
(Editor’s Note: Look to the Aug. 15
issue of the Northwest Labor Press for
more details about the initiatives that
make it to the ballot. Unions are gear-
ing up to fight the measures, and are
joining with other constituencies tar-
geted by the measures to form a
group, Defend Oregon, that will wage
a unified campaign against them.)
Rachel Lebwohl of Our
Oregon shows irregularities
in signatures that she an a
co-worker found in a small
sample of anti-union
initiative petitions
sponsored by Bill Sizemore.
The organization has filed a
complaint with the Oregon
Elections Division.
discover
the same violations on other sheets.”
“We want to hold all of these peo-
ple criminally accountable for what
they’ve done,” said Moore, the Our
Oregon spokesperson.
On July 17, the Elections Division
assigned compliance specialist Norma
Buckno to investigate the complaint. A
week later, none of the named individ-
uals interviewed by the NW Labor
Press had been called.
If the results of the Our Oregon
probe prove to be examples of forgery,
the practice may well have made the
difference in getting several measures
on the ballot this year. When county
elections clerks performed the re-
quired validity check of signatures,
they found over a third were invalid.
Three of Sizemore’s five measures
qualified for the ballot by fewer than a
thousand signatures. If even 1 percent
of the signatures on those petitions
were forgeries, that would be enough
to have made the difference in getting
them on the ballot.
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