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The effort to recall state Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene), the longest-serving House Democrat, took a bizarre turn July 19 when elections officials finished counting the signatures recall proponents had submitted: It has failed, at least so far.
The Recall Paul Holvey, or RPH, campaign turned in 6,622 signatures in two batches, with the second coming in to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office on July 5. To put Holvey’s recall on the ballot, the campaign, which is funded entirely by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 (to the tune of $100,000 so far), needs 4,598 of those signatures to be valid.
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That’s a 69% validity rate, which in the context of signature gathering for statewide ballot measures that have qualified in the past, is an achievable standard.
But when elections officials finished the verification process yesterday, the campaign came up well short.
“After verification, the petition contained a total of 2,610 valid signatures, which is less than the 4,598 required,” elections officials announced.
That means only 39% of the signatures gathered by the firm Osprey Field Services were legit.
Holvey didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Miles Eshaia, a spokesman for UFCW Local 555, the state’s largest private sector union, with about 30,000 members, says the campaign is unhappy with the process.
“We do have some concerns about faulty procedures and politically oriented communications that were witnessed by our observers over the last several days,” Eshaia says. “I think there are a lot of voters in District 8 [Holvey’s Eugene-area House district] that will be surprised to learn they’ve been disenfranchised.”
Eshaia adds that UFCW also has questions about how the verification was done. “We’ll be auditing these results with our elections attorney at the same time we’re collecting the remaining signatures,” he says.
The campaign now has until Aug. 21, 90 days from when it announced the recall effort, to gather the rest of the signatures it needs.