Opinion ID: 1132565
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Change of Address

Text: Petitioners contend that the county clerks disqualified 55 initiative petition signers because the address on the petition varied from the address on the registration card. The Secretary of State takes no position on whether an address variance alone should invalidate petition signatures. Petitioners cite an Attorney General Opinion, AGO 6534, September 28, 1967, in which the question was asked by the Secretary of State: Must the residence address of a petition signer be identical to the residence address entered on his registration card in order to have his signature counted as genuine on an initiative or referendum petition? The Attorney General replied: We do not believe that the legislature intended either that voters could be disenfranchised in failing to have their names counted on an initiative petition where they merely stated their address incorrectly or moved and reregistered after signing the petition, nor do we believe that the legislature, in order to avoid this result, intended to place upon the county clerk the burden of investigating each case where the address stated is different from that of the voter's registration. We therefore conclude that the county clerk in checking signatures on initiative petitions may not refuse to count a signature simply because his residence as listed on the petition differs from that appearing on the signer's registration card. The defendant Secretary of State points out that this opinion was based on former ORS 254.040 which was repealed in 1973. We find nothing in that legislative enactment or any subsequently enacted legislation to indicate the legislature intended to change the law on this point. [9] We agree with the Attorney General's observation that a person may have more than one residence or that a voter, when signing a petition, may be at that time stating his voting residence with full accuracy as it then appears on the registration records but may, before the petition is presented to the county clerk for checking, move to a new address and change his registration accordingly. As the Attorney General's Opinion states: In such event, to say that the county clerk may disregard the signature would be to disenfranchise a voter who has at all times properly maintained his registration. The 55 signatures should not have been invalidated for the reason that the address on the petition was not the same as the address on the registration card.