Here's an interesting story from last week's Oregonian on that state legislature's efforts to curb signature fraud. (Your blogger is quoted in it). Oregon already is rare among initiative states for banning per-signature pay for circulators. Since 2007, it has required that gatherers register with the state.

Such regulations have made signature gathering slightly more expensive in Oregon, according to those who work there. (The per-signature system is nothing if not economically efficient). But widespread signature fraud in other states -- most notably Arizona's Maricopa County last year -- requires some response.

The Oregon legislation does two things.

1. It seeks to bar signature gatherers with a history of fraud from circulating petitions, and imposes large fines against companies that are found to have permitted fraud knowingly. My reaction: all to the good.

2. It requires that signatures be turned in at least once a month. This is billed as anti-fraud device. If it were adopted in a pay-per-signature state like California, it also could save some money for initiative sponsors by combating hoarding (circulators often hang onto petitions for a long time until the price per-signature goes up.

Over at Fox & Hounds Daily, Joel Fox and I are debating the wisdom of permitting legislatures to add a counter-proposal to each initiative that appears on a ballot. In this piece, Fox criticizes legislation in Oregon to do just that. And in response, I describe why I like the Oregon legislation and think counter proposals would strengthen direct democracy.

An Oregon judge has set down a set of rules to govern the conduct of Bill Sizemore, the activist who can't seem to stop himself from sponsoring ballot initiatives. Chief among them: Sizemore can no longer help run or be paid by any nonprofit organization without first receiving a judge's approval.

Sizemore has been accused by newspapers and his chief political opponent, the Oregon teachers' union, of creating and operating sham non-profits to disguise political donations and enrich himself. The county circuit judge who imposed the rule said that handcuffing Sizemore is essential to keeping elections honest in the state of Oregon. Details via the Oregonian.

In the United States, ballot initiatives usually appear "naked" on the ballot. That is to say, voters decide yes or no on a particular statute or constitutional amendment, and that's it. There's only one choice.

Most of the rest of the world doesn't do things this way. In Switzerland, where modern direct democracy was invented, voters get more of a choice. They not only can vote yes or no on an initiative, but they also get to pass a judgment on a legislative counter-proposal to each initiative. And they can decide which of the two meausures-- the initiative or the counter-proposal--takes effect in the event that both are approved by voters.

But change may be coming in Oregon. The possibility of a counter-proposal is part of state legislation, now being debated, that would require that initiatives go to the legislature first before they appear on the ballot. If approved, the legislation would give lawmakers the option of approving the initiative, doing nothing and letting the initiative go on the ballot, or offering a counter-proposal.

The new secretary of state and attorney general in Oregon, both Democrats, have been making it clear that they don't care much for ballot initiatives and are going to make it harder to qualify measures for the ballot. They intend to scrutinize initiative filings more closely, and are seeking to enhance penalties for fradulent signature gathering.

Phony signatures have been a part of the political process as long as signatures have been sought by initiative sponsors and candidates. A good validity rate for signatures in an initiative campaign is about 70 percent. But in Arizona this year, several measures had validity rates of 50 percent or lower. That's alarming, and suggests there was widespread fraud.

But there's reason to worry that the elected officials are thinking more about politics than the law. It's noteworthy that the attorney general-elect, John Kroger, hired an attorney who has represented the teachers' union in years of initiative battles with Bill Sizemore, an Oregon activist who, a court recently suggested, is addicted to the filing of initiatives. The state should be careful that it doesn't limit political rights. A new state law already raises the bar considerably for filing petitions, with the signature requirement merely for submitting a petition (as opposed to qualifying it for the ballot) rising from 25 to 1,000 signatures.

Bill Sizemore is an Oregon activist who has been engaged in fighting teachers' unions at the ballot for years. But he's been less than devoted to filing proper tax forms for the non-profit group he uses to wage initiative battles. The unions have fought him successfully in court. Because of his intrasigence, Sizemore has been barred by court order from pursuing initiatives, but he's found it impossible to stop. This week, he was sent to a jail for contempt of court (this is the fourth time he's been held in contempt).

His crime? Defying earlier court orders by using a Nevada charitable foundation he controls to pursue initiatives on the 2006 and 2008 ballots. He backed five measures on this year's ballot--all five lost.

Sizemore was released Tuesday after 24 hours when he signed state and federal tax forms for the foundation. But he was unrepetenant, arguing that he's a political prisoner. A more accurate description of Sizemore? He's an initiative addict. He doesn't need time in jail. He needs an intervention.

The Oregonian profiles Loren Parks, the Nevada millionaire who has given big to Oregon initiative campaigns.

The Secretary of State of Oregon was no fan of an effort to qualify a referendum to reverse the state's domestic partnership law. And the number of valid signatures barely met the requirement. So he went through the signatures and disqualified some 200 signatures that were determined not to match the voter signatures on registration card.

Now the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Secretary of State's actions were lawful. It's a tough call. While signature fraud remains a threat in the petition circulation game, it's a good bet that many or even most of the disqualified signatures were valid. How's that? People's signatures often change over the years. And for that reason, here's some free advice. If you haven't changed your voter registration in the past 5 years, it's a good idea to go in and update it, with a fresh signature. I've observed the counting of absentee ballots in California, and election officials are often checking against voter registration signatures from 30 or 40 years ago. If signatures don't match, the votes don't get counted.

An initiative to link teacher pay to student performance in the classroom has qualified for the statewide ballot in Oregon.

The "top two" open primary and a measure dedicating 15 percent of lottery revenues to public safety. Details are here.