By Taxpayers Association of Oregon / OregonWatchdog.com
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The referendum petition to stop the $4.3 billion gas tax is in full swing. One of the most common questions this week is why we discourage people from making copies of the petitions we send them. People see this from other petition campaigns and want to know why.
The reason is that when people copy petitions at home or the office they make mistakes and those mistakes get replicated over time. We don’t discover the flaw until the end of the process when they send them in and it is too late to fix them. Flawed petitions mean every signature is void.
Here is what happens when people make their own copies of petitions:
- People copying petitions forget to copy the back of the petitions. It breaks our heart to get one-sided petitions turned into the campaign.
- People copy petitions at different paper-weight levels. It may sound peculiar, but the Elections Office will only accept certain types of copy paper. Copy paper that leans toward super-light or more-heavy than normal will be disqualified.
- People copy petitions on different color paper. Oh dear! People like to copy petitions in nice-looking ivory or super-bright paper, and yes, this voids all the names on the sheet.
- Some copy machines will shrink the size of the petition. If repeated, the petition noticeably shrinks and becomes void.
- If people are told they can copy petitions, they automatically assume they can scan them to make copies. Upon scanning, we get all kinds of shrinkage to the petition, which causes the petition to be voided.
We know your frustration at not being able to copy petitions and we understand it. Please know that this good-faith practice among different petition campaigns helps us rescue thousands of signatures from being voided during a campaign cycle.
Be patient with your local petition effort.