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Soldier4Christ
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« on: October 24, 2007, 09:39:00 AM » |
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Oregon minority again overrules voters
Officials refuse to restore valid petition signatures they disallowed
For the second time on the same issue this year, the expressed will of voters in Oregon is being overruled by a few officials in key government positions, and several pro-family groups say the officials are letting their personal beliefs affect their official actions.
"Oregon voters who support traditional marriage and morality are being denied their right to vote, for purely political reasons by state and county elections officials in the pockets of Oregon's homosexual lobby," charged a statement released by Concerned Oregonians, which sought to put HB 2007 and SB 2 on a coming election ballot.
Those two bills were rammed through the last Legislature, and make up a combination that bestows on same-sex couples all the rights given married couples, critics said, as well as providing vast new legal power for those who choose homosexual, bisexual or other alternative lifestyles in their newly designated status as protected minorities.
The first case of the minority rule happened during the legislature, when 54 state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski rejected the will of the people to approve and sign into Law HB 2007 and SB 2.
For 148 years Oregon had recognized marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and voters four times have addressed the issue, most recently in 2004 when they collected more than a million votes and by a substantial 57-43 percent margin decided to keep traditional marriage defined as being between only one man and only one woman.
But the newest legislation simply rejects that vote, and even makes a move to address such citizen "attitudes," requiring schools to seek to change the minds of those who don't support homosexual duos.
The newest case comes on the decision by the state Secretary of State's office that those collecting signatures to put the issues on the election ballot fell 116 signatures short of the required 55,179, after turning in 63,000 names.
The state has a process to check a certain number of names, and then approve or disqualify others based on the ones checked.
David Crowe, a leader of Restore America, one of the groups coordinating the petition effort, told WND that there are a number of county clerks who have colluded with state officials who endorse the special privileges for homosexuals to prevent people from voting on the issues.
"It's political," he said. "There are people who are hostile to us in three or four counties who are in collusion with state officials behind the scenes, those who we know are not for us."
The offense comes, however, not from those perceived attitudes, but the results, he said. When the result came so close, and it became obvious that some legitimate signatures had been disallowed, Crowe said, he was told there was no recourse to have any signatures reconsidered.
Bill Burgess, the clerk in Marion County, confirmed not only that was the case, but that the state had given county clerks instructions to follow that "precedent" and not correct any incorrectly classified signatures they may have been told about.
"We also have a legal obligation to follow the guidelines and precedents of the past and our attorney has told us, and the Secretary of State has advised us that there is no place in this petition signature checking process for a person to come in later on and attest that that was their signature," he told WND.
"There's no direct ban [on corrections]," he said. "Well, it's not specified, and both the Secretary of State and my legal counsel have told me not to go there."
He said those who check the signatures – employees of the clerk's office – are careful when they go through them. "We have experience with that," he said, "county petitions, recall petitions, these are the same people checking the people on petitions."
He said his office's workers "have to rise above any self-interest" in such work. And he said the only thing that could force a change in the procedures would be a judge.
Crowe said he knew of the instructions from the Secretary of State to counties not to make any corrections in the tabulation; he said he had gotten a copy of a state e-mail to that effect.
"They are advising their people to close this off," he told WND. 'They're telling them a half-truth. They are saying, 'You don't have to consider these signatures.'"
Crowe said while there's nothing in the rules requiring it, counties are "free" to do that if they choose.
But he said Burgess is a Democrat and a vocal supporter of "lesbian state Sen. Kate Brown for Secretary of State."
Crowe said a team of lawyers is reviewing the situation now, and soon will recommend a coming course of action.
Jean Straight, a deputy Secretary of State in Oregon, challenged the claim that personal beliefs could have been influential.
"That is not correct," she said. "We have a process that we follow. … I know that they're upset, but it doesn't have a thing to do with a personal agenda."
She told WND that during the counting and verifying process, supporters of the petition were allowed to be there, and opponents also were invited.
"They both had an opportunity to question signatures," she told WND.
But Crowe suggested there needs to be a better way than this case, where he said a registered voter who signed the petition, then discovered his name had been thrown out, is left with no recourse.
cont'd
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