Initiative Petition 1PDX2026 does not qualify to Portland’s November ballot

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PORTLAND, Ore. - Today, August 4, 2026, Portland City Elections announced that Portland Initiative Petition 1PDX2026 (Portland Enhanced Community Safety Initiative) does not contain enough valid signatures to qualify to the City's November 3, 2026, General Election ballot. The petition contained 34,130 signatures of registered Portland voters, falling 6,307 short of the required 40,437 signatures, according to the final statistical sampling report certified to the City by Multnomah County Elections.

For an initiative to appear on the ballot, chief petitioners must submit valid signatures from at least nine percent of the number of registered City voters on the primary election day before the petition's initial filing. Initiative Petition 1PDX2026 required 40,437 signatures. Petitioners reported submitting 63,315 signatures for verification.

Why the petition failed

• The primary reason the petition failed to qualify was the low number of signatures from registered Portland voters. Only 61 percent of signatures in statistical samples were valid. In the combined samples, over 70 percent of rejected signatures were from signers who were not registered voters or did not live in Portland.
• A secondary reason was the high number of instances where the same person signed the petition two or more times. When a statistical sample includes duplicate, triplicate, and multiple signatures, the state-law formula requires elections officials to reduce the final signature tally proportionally. Duplicates and triplicates found in the samples of 1PDX2026 lowered the petition's overall validity rate by 3.57 percent, removing 1,994 signatures from the result of the statistical sample.
• Before sampling, the City rejected 8,426 invalid signature lines from the petition as part of state-mandated pre-processing.
  • More than 50 percent of the total signatures rejected in pre-processing (4,268 lines, or 90 percent of all lines rejected individually in pre-processing) were invalid because Petitioners struck them out before submission, or because they submitted blank lines. Oregon law does not allow elections officials to count stricken or blank lines.
  • The remaining 4,158 signature lines were rejected because individual lines were altered without required verification, or because they appeared on sheets that did not meet state law requirements for circulator certification, or on unapproved petition sheets.
• After pre-processing, the City sent 55,837 signatures to the County for verification. After verifying statistical samples as state law requires, officials determined that the petition contained 34,130 valid signatures. Notably, at that validity rate, the petition would have failed to qualify even if the City had sampled all 63,315 signatures petitioners reported submitting.

City and County verification steps
The City and County work together to complete signature verification within 30 days after receiving signatures, as required by Oregon state law and administrative rules. First, the City reviews the petition sheets to ensure they are correct in form; for example, that the form of the circulator's certification is sufficient and that petitioners used approved petition sheets. The City rejects any nonconforming sheets and signature lines and sends the remainder to the County for signature verification. The County randomly selects and then verifies a sample of signatures, following procedures in state law, and reports its results to the City. If there are enough signatures, the City determines the initiative qualifies and certifies it to the ballot.

City's role in petition review process
The verification process is administrative; its purpose is to determine whether a petition contains enough genuine voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. The Oregon Secretary of State has a separate process for addressing election law violations by circulators and chief petitioners, such as improper signature gathering methods or false statements concerning petitions.

View all signature verification documents

View the FAQ on the petition verification process for 1PDX2026