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