The Referendum Process
In 1902, Oregonians voted to begin a system of direct legislation by the people. The referendum process allows citizens to take any specific item of legislation passed during the legislative session and place it on a ballot for Oregon voters to make the ultimate decision.
A petition is filed with the Secretary of State for the given piece of legislation (House Bill 2152 in this case) and supporters then have to gather a required number of valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
The number of required signatures is a fixed calculation: 5% of the total votes cast in the most recent election for governor. For this referendum, 50,420 signatures were required.
The signatures are submitted by a given deadline and checked for validity by the Secretary of State and the County Clerks .
On November 25 th , the Taxpayer Defense Fund submitted their gathered signatures to the Secretary of State's office. On December 3 rd , 2003 , the Secretary of State gave final certification to the referendum making it Ballot Measure 30. The total number of valid signatures submitted was over 118,000.
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