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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2018)
Page 4 News Street Roots • Feb. 16-22, 2018 s BY EMILY GREEN S E N IO R S T A F F R E P O R T E R status of Oregon, and stop Donald Trump from making decisions for Oregonians,” she told Street Roots. When he showed Fisher where to sign, she saw that what he was talking about was Initiative Petition 22. She had heard about IP 22 through the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance, and the way he described it to her didn’t seem right. She told him she Would do a little research and get back to him. As she walked away, she looked up IP 22 on her phone and realized it would do the exact opposite of what the signature gatherer had told her it would do; it would repeal Oregon’s sanctuary-state status, not protect it. The actual ballot title for the initiative reads: “Repeals law limiting use of state/ local law enforcement resources to enforce federal immigration laws.” Knowing that many students at Portland State University are eager to help Oregon’s immigrant communities and would likely be fooled into signing a petition for an initiative they actually opposed, Fisher decided to turn on her phone’s video recording feature and confront the signature gatherer who misled her. The recording revealed the Ballot Access LLC employee appeared to have no idea what IP 22 would actually do. He even said he was against repealing the state’s sanctuary status and usually collected signatures for “simpler” issues related to marijuana and GMO labeling. Fisher told the Secretary of State’s Office in a written complaint submitted three days later that 16 other PSU students told her they had signed the petition after being told it was “to protect Oregon’s sanctuary state status.” Many more said they were also told it was for a pro-sanctuary initiative but didn’t sign it because they were suspicious, she said. She included a link to the video in her complaint. In response, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office has opened a formal investigation into Ballot Access LLC, according to a spokesperson for the office, Debra Royal, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson’s chief of staff. In Oregon, making false statements to anyone who signs a petition or makes people as they came and went from Posies requests of information about it can result in Bakery and Cafe, telling them that if they a felony conviction and fines of up to * didn’t want the Trump agenda, $125,000. sign her proposal. Fisher also claimed the two signature “I thought it was fishy,” she said. gatherers working on campus told her off- When Petit got home, she checked online camera they were being paid $2 per to see if there was some other alternative signature - also illegal in Oregon when sanctuary initiative that perhaps this woman signatures are being gathered for an was collecting signatures for, rather than initiative. the initiative to repeal the state’s sanctuary As of Feb. 12, Royal said, the Oregon status, as Petit suspected. There wasn’t. Secretary of State’s Office had received four “It was totally, totally misleading,” she requests from people who said they had said. signed a petition for IP 22 but, after reading “There was a line of people around me more about it, wanted their names removed. who were all coming up to sign it,” she said. But, she said, Fisher’s is the only official “It was ridiculous. They were all super complaint related to the actual signature liberal people wanting to do the right thing, gatherers for IP 22 her office has received. including me.” But the problem appears to extend far There have also been unverified reports beyond the downtown college campus. of fraudulent information being used outside Our Oregon, a union-backed political of Portland to gather signatures for the anti advocacy organization, has received sanctuary initiative. complaints from seven people who reported Fisher’s “isn’t the first incidence we’ve hearing canvassers in the Portland area heard of signature gathering gone wrong,” misleading the public in order to get said Joel Iboa, who coordinates One Oregon, signatures for IP 22. a coalition of advocacy groups united on Katherine Driessen, spokesperson for protecting Oregon’s immigrant populations. Our Oregon, said that’s “a lot of (Street Roots is a nonactive member of One complaints,” considering how early in the Oregon.) election cycle it is. “We heard it in Southern Oregon, heard “It sounds like it’s pretty consistent, about it in other counties as well,” Iboa said. where they are just wildly misrepresenting - Fisher told Street Roots, and included in implying that the ballot measure does the her complaint to the Secretary of State’s exact opposite of what it actually does,” she Office, that a conversation with the other said. “Folks really only report signature signature gatherer working on her campus gatherers when the behavior they encounter that day revealed that he, too, was is really egregious.” misrepresenting the nature of IP 22. Both North Portland resident Sunny Petit was men told her they had never read the one of the people who reached out to Our initiative and didn’t really know what it did, Oregon to complain. Petit told Street Roots she said. she encountered a signature gatherer, this Fisher said that when she approached time a woman, in the Kenton neighborhood this second canvasser, a woman was signing the morning of Feb. 7. Petit said the woman was talking to See PETITION, page 5 Anyone who believes they were tricked into signing a petition and would ike their name removed can call the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at 503-986- 1518 or toll free at 866-673-8683. Above: A voter signs a petition supporting IP 22, which would p u t a measure on the state’s November ballot to repeal Oregon’s sanctuary-state status. PH O TO B Y JO A N N E ZU H L
