Eugene canvassers turn in the last batch of signatures for the 2020 STAR Voting for Eugene Campaign. The STAR Eugene Campaign has now relaunched and is beginning signature collection!
STAR Eugene Launches New Initiative!:
- More choice. Voters score candidates from 0 up to 5 stars.
- Just one election in November. Eugene elections are already non-partisan, and adopting STAR Voting would eliminate the need for expensive and low-turnout primaries for local offices.
- STAR Voting eliminates spoilers and vote splitting, so you can stop worrying about who you think can win and just focus on the candidates and the issues.
- STAR Voting elects majority preferred winners.
- STAR Voting would pay for itself within a few election cycles and then would start saving taxpayers money.
- STAR Eugene dovetails perfectly with the STAR Voting for Oregon initiative, which would make STAR Voting the default voting method statewide.
- This is our chance to be a model for the rest of the nation.
Initiative Details:
We are approved to begin signature collection! The STAR Voting for Eugene Initiative will begin circulating on May 16th in conjunction with the STAR Voting for Oregon Petition, which launched and has been circulating since February 2023.
Once we start, the STAR Voting for Eugene petition will have 100 days to reach our target of 9,689 verified signatures. The deadline will be likely be Thursday, September 14. The STAR Oregon Petition has until July 2024 to complete the signature collection and needs 120,413 verified signatures.
If successful, STAR Voting for Eugene will be on the May 2024 ballot and STAR Voting for Oregon will be on the November 2024 ballot.
Contact Us:
Please email us to schedule a press interview, schedule a presentation, endorse the initiatives, or share an opportunity we should be aware of: [email protected]
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Volunteer Opportunities:
Chapter meetings: The STAR Voting Oregon Chapter meets monthly online. We also have in person events, trainings and actions regularly. Please check on our events page for details and to get the meeting link or add the Equal Vote events calendar to your google calendar directly.
Canvassing: Are you a people person who loves to talk about voting reform? If so, join our canvassing team or come table with us!
More Opportunities: If you're looking for other ways to help we also have a number of subcommittees and projects where we can put your skills and interests Regardless of your location, availability, or schedule you can help get this over the finish line! Our chapter is currently in need of people with the following skills and we're looking for the following items to help us complete work on our office. To volunteer email [email protected]
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Skills needed:
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Items needed:
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STAR Eugene 2020 Initiative Lawsuit:
The STAR Voting for Eugene campaign turned in 10,406 signatures to qualify for the May 2020 ballot, but despite turning in well over the 8,091 signatures required, the 2019-1 petition was found to be short 111 signatures and was deemed "void." The verification process looked at a 20% sample of the signatures submitted, invalidated 22%, and determined that the fate of the petition accordingly. If only 23 of the signers who were rejected from the sample had been counted the petition would have qualified.
The STAR Voting for Eugene Campaign has three separate claims as to why the petition should have qualified for the ballot:
1.) 23 valid Eugene voters who were rejected from the 20% sample for "signature mismatch" promptly signed and submitted affidavits affirming that they had in fact signed the petition and verifying the authenticity of their signatures. Counting these would result in an additional 115 signatures being counted.
2.) 255 voters were unfairly disenfranchised and rejected due to having been listed as inactive. (See below for more information.)
3.) An "error report" was submitted documenting 34 signatures which were rejected for "signature mismatch" but which we analyzed and believe should have been counted. Correcting these verification errors would result in an additional 170 signatures being counted. The following is a breakdown of the errors discovered:
- 11 signatures are clearly matches and we could not identify a reason why the signature was rejected.
- One example is a signature for a woman who was recently married and signed with her new last name.
- One example is a signature for "Pat Ryan" which was rejected as not matching Patricia Ryan, but which does match her husband Charles Patrick Ryan. The two go by Pat and Patricia respectively.
- One example is a signer who printed her name in the signature field, but then initialed as well. Her signature on file is her initial.
- One example is a signature that was crossed off by the signer and should not have been counted at all but was erroneously rejected as illegible (which results in 4 other signatures being disqualified as well.)
- One example is a signer whose signature on file is sloppy and signed the petition with a somewhat neater version.
- One example has their signature on file in italic but signed the petition in cursive. The signatures clearly match.
- 8 signers either signed their signatures in the column for the printed name or their printed name, in fact, matched their signature on file. The campaign had confirmed in writing with the County Clerk that signers would not be rejected for these types of minor issues if the signature is on the sheet and verifiable, but these signers were rejected anyway.
On these grounds, the Equal Vote Coalition has filed a lawsuit calling for the petition to be certified. Plaintiffs include Mark Frohnmayer, one of the chief petitioners, Mark Osterloh, the top volunteer canvassers, and three of the signers whose signatures were erroneously rejected, Pat Ryan, Robert Selvan, and Erin Rappold. Defendants include Beth Forest in her official capacity as City of Eugene Recorder, and
Cheryl Betschart, in her official capacity as Lane County Clerk.
"Attached is an Oregon Court of Appeals opinion issued yesterday, [12/31/20] Whitehead v. Clarno. It decides that inactive registered voters can validly sign initiative petitions."
"The County Clerk disqualified from the 20% sample of STAR Voting signatures a total of 51 inactive registered voters. Considering them valid would increase the overall count by 255, more than enough--by itself--to make up the supposed shortfall of 111 signatures."
History of the Eugene Equal Vote Chapter:
2007: The Equal Vote Coalition was first envisioned in 2007 in Eugene, Oregon by Mark Frohnmayer. In 2013 the social media presence went live, and in 2014 Equal Vote ran a statewide ballot initiative to implement the Unified Primary, a groundbreaking proposal which included a non-partisan primary using Approval Voting and a Top-2 general election. That reform went further than any previous proposals in Oregon, but it didn't go far enough for many and it ultimately fell short of the required signatures to make the ballot. Still, the reform did serve as a catalyst for change and it did spark a new wave of discussion and feedback around voting reform in general.
2014: The campaign hosted an Equal Vote Conference at The University of Oregon with a number of leading election reform groups from around the country represented. At that conference, a conversation between founding members of the groups advocating for three leading voting methods sparked the idea for STAR Voting, which is essentially a hybrid between Score Voting and Instant Runoff Voting.
2017: In 2017 The Eugene chapter launched the STAR Voting for Lane County Campaign. After submitting the required 11,500 verified signatures the initiative was approved for the 2018 November 6th ballot. On November 6th, 2018 the initiative nearly passed with 47.6% of the vote. When we took a closer look at the statistics we found that 12% of voters had left the question blank, likely due to the confusing ballot title and the fact that the initiative was the only thing on the back of the ballot. Only 42% had actually voted no. When we broke the stats down by area the pattern that emerged was that every single precinct where we had campaigned and had lawn signs up had voted yes, and in Eugene, in the areas that we had concentrated our education and outreach, voters had voted yes by over 70%.
2019: Committed to trying again and doing better, in 2019 we launched two new campaigns for STAR Voting for Eugene and Lane County. In Eugene, petitions are only allowed 100 days to collect the required 8,091 verified signatures. We turned in 10,604. After verification we were notified that the petition had failed to qualify by 111 signatures, and that this number was actually extrapolated from only 23 rejected signers based on a 20% sample.
Deciding to appeal the ruling, we requested the Signer's Report, a line by line breakdown of every person who was rejected, and found that the ruling had come down to a handful of people who had been rejected in error, and that 63 people had been subjectively rejected because their signatures did not match the signature on file. Determined that every valid signature should count, we followed up with 25 people whose signatures had been rejected and all of them signed a notarized affidavit stating that they had in fact signed and that the signature on the petition sheet was theirs. We then brought our findings to the Eugene's Mayor Vinis, and to the City Council, who originally overwhelmingly agreed that STAR Voting deserved to be on the 2020 ballot but ultimately failed to take action in time to place STAR Voting on the May 2020 ballot.
2020: The signature analysis and signer affidavits were submitted as evidence in a legal appeal in Jan 27th, 2020, parallel to a direct appeal to the Eugene City Council to formally rectify the matter by referring STAR Voting to the ballot themselves. At city council hearing in July 2020 councillors voted 4-4 on a ballot referral for STAR Voting, with some citing a desire to see how the legal appeal went. Mayor Vinis, who had signed the initiative and been supportive of STAR Voting up to that point broke the tie with a No vote.
In the Lane County Circuit Court a hearing on November 10th, 2020 found the case to be "Moot" because the election where the initiative should have been heard had already passed. In the process none of the campaigns findings of voter disenfranchisement were challenged or refuted. This ruling is incorrect. Statewide initiative law requires that statewide ballot initiatives must aim for a specific ballot, but this is NOT the case for local initiatives. Local initiatives are certified to the next ballot after they are approved, and our petition has not been approved yet, so the clock has not started ticking.
Shortly after, on 12/31/20, another ruling in an adjacent case found that it is illegal to reject signatures from "inactive voters." An inactive voter is a registered voter who has not voted in the last few elections and who the elections division no longer sends a ballot to. (This ruling was later appealed and overturned, and further appeals are likely as the case escalates through the court system.
"Attached is an Oregon Court of Appeals opinion issued yesterday, [12/31/20] Whitehead v. Clarno. It decides that inactive registered voters can validly sign initiative petitions."
"The County Clerk disqualified from the 20% sample of STAR Voting signatures a total of 51 inactive registered voters. Considering them valid would increase the overall count by 255, more than enough--by itself--to make up the supposed shortfall of 111 signatures."
An appeal was filed.
2021: Additional evidence was submitted in the legal appeal for STAR Voting for Eugene. In addition to the signatures which were erroneously rejected due to signature mismatch, 255 other voters were marked as "Inactive" and were rejected for this reason.
On April 22nd, 2021, a decision was made by the Lane County Circuit court to "Reactivate" the legal case for the STAR Voting for Eugene ballot initiative. This ruling follows on the heels of a ruling on another case, which had found that it was unlawful to reject the signatures of otherwise registered and valid voters due to their voting status having been listed as "Inactive." It is standard practice to list voters as inactive for a few reasons, such as not having voted in a recent election or having had mail returned as undeliverable. Once a voter is deemed Inactive the elections department will then to stop sending them ballots, and it has been standard practice statewide and at the local level to reject those signers from subsequent ballots initiatives. Clearly, it is voter disenfranchisement to disqualify a voter as Inactive when they are actively trying to participate in the political process by signing an initiative. Then, this ruling was appealed and overturned by a higher court. Another appeal on the Whitehead v. Clarno case is in progress.
2022: The STAR Voting for Eugene legal appeal now has three separate claims as to why it should have qualified for the ballot in addition to the fact that the case is not moot. 1.) The signatures which were rejected in error and which were clearly matched. 2.) The signed affidavits from valid voters affirming that they signed the petition. 3.) The voters who were unfairly disenfranchised and rejected due to having been listed as inactive.
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