Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon voters will have plenty of decisions to make during this November's election.  There could be nearly a dozen ballot measures to consider.

That's on top of the Presidential, Congressional and Legislative races.  Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

Former Oregon Secretaries of State Phil Keisling and Norma Paulus  drop off signatures for their open primaries ballot measure.

The deadline to submit signatures for ballot measures wouldn't be the same without the requisite publicity stunt.

Here, former Secretaries of State Norma Paulus and Phil Keisling carry in two boxes of signatures in front of the watchful eyes of waiting reporters.

This was the pair's second round of signature submissions.  They dropped off a slew of them in May, but it wasn't enough to get their open primary proposal on the ballot.

Keisling says they should clear the bar this time, and voters will get to decide on whether to allow anyone to vote in primaries, regardless of party affiliation.

Phil Keisling:  "For the first time in more than a century, Oregonians will get a chance to ask a very fundamental question --  'Who should control our elections systems?'  Citizens and voters, or private organizations known as political parties."

State elections workers now have the task of counting and then verifying signatures to decide which initiative petitions will qualify to the ballot.

The goal is to weed out any bogus names.  To do that, Summer Davis of the Secretary of State's office says staffers  take a random sample of signatures from each petition.  That sample goes to local elections offices where the voters live.

Summer Davis:  "Then they notify us of the results, and we plug them into our statistical formula to say whether or not that random sample contains enough signatures to qualify to the ballot."

Pending results, Oregonians will likely be voting on things like English-only education and mandatory prison sentences for more criminals. 

At least four of this year's ballot measures are sponsored by political activist Bill Sizemore.

He's probably not celebrating.  The Oregon Supreme Court ruled recently that a non-profit controlled by Sizemore is liable for forging signatures and misusing contributions in a petition drive eight years ago.