By Taxpayers Association of Oregon / OregonWatchdog.com
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The gas tax petition referendum against Governor Kotek’s $4.3 billion gas tax has officially been approved by the State Elections Office after a total of a quarter million (250,900) signatures were submitted at the deadline this week. It has been approved for the November 2026 ballot where voters will have the right to vote on this awful tax — something that Governor Kotek and the Democratic Legislative Majority blocked voters from doing.
The error rate for the early turn-in signatures submitted on December 15th of 193,000 showed an impressive 85% validity rate.
Of the errors on disqualified sheets, over 55% were due to mistakes like circulators correcting their date mistake by rewriting the correct date (as opposed to the official crossing out the date and re-writing a new date and initialing next to the new date).
The Chief petitioners of the campaign have been State Senator Bruce Starr, State Representative Ed Diehl, Jason Williams of the Taxpayers Association.
Additional team members have been Jodie Fleck the petition coordinator (in photo on top at left), John Swanson the team leader, and Nick Stark a state petition coordinator — all extraordinary individuals who made this little miracle happen.