Opinion ID: 1132565
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Purged Registrations

Text: Petitioners claim the county clerk erroneously declared invalid the signatures of 34 persons who were registered at the time the petition was signed but whose names had subsequently been removed from the active voter files. ORS 250.025 provides: Any elector may sign an initiative or referendum petition for any measure on which the elector is entitled to vote. Under Article II, section 2 of the Oregon Constitution a person becomes a qualified elector if he is a citizen of the United States, is 18 years of age or older, meets the residency requirement and [i]s registered prior to the election in the manner provided by law. If he is a qualified elector at the time of signing the petition, the signature is not invalid because his name may later be removed from the active voter file. Defendant Secretary of State takes no position on this issue except to point out that county clerks would have to check the file of purged voter registration cards to determine whether a particular individual's registration card had been purged subsequent to the signing of the petition. She argues that this would significantly delay the verification process. That may be true, but the statutory and constitutional provisions cannot be avoided for the sake of speed and efficiency. The signatures of the 34 persons who were registered at the time the petition was signed but whose names had subsequently been removed from the active voter files should not have been invalidated for that reason.