A federal judge in Oregon won’t immediately order a recount for a ballot measure that aimed to use money in Portland’s climate fund on local police.
Portland elections officials ruled on Aug. 4 that the effort failed to clear the 40,437-signature minimum to qualify for the November ballot.
Safer Portland, the group leading the ballot initiative, subsequently sued, citing discrimination. They asked the court for an emergency recount of the signatures.
In his decision Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said he denied those requests because supporters of the initiative lacked evidence that Portland elections workers veered from state elections laws.
FILE - The Safer Portland campaign holds a press conference in July 6, 2026 in Portland, Ore. Supporters of the initiative, which would divert climate funds to the Portland Police Bureau, sued after the proposal failed to qualify for the November ballot.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
It wasn’t immediately clear if Safer Portland would appeal. Campaign leaders and their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Deborah Scroggin, who manages Portland’s elections division, called Simon’s decision a vindication against accusations that they mishandled signature sheets.
“The court denied their request to reinvent Oregon law,” Scroggin told OPB. “Portland City Elections followed the law, applied the same standards used for every petition, and accurately reported the result.”
Safer Portland submitted dozens of boxes, amounting to about 63,000 signatures, to the city’s elections office in July. But city officials ruled out thousands for various reasons, including blank signature lines, altered signatures or signatures being struck out completely.
Related: Portland police ballot initiative backers sue local elections officials
Multnomah County elections officials, who were also named in the lawsuit, further verified the city’s work.
Beside ruling that local elections officers followed state laws appropriately, Simon, in a hearing Tuesday, also challenged the petitioners’ arguments that they weren’t given enough opportunity to fix flawed signatures.
The judge pointed out that they submitted the thousands of sheets of signatures all on the last possible day.
The initiative had strong support from Portland police’s rank-and-file union. Its main labor attorney, Anil Karia, of Public Safety Labor Group, was among the plaintiff’s attorneys filing for the injunction. Karia did not respond to requests for comment.
Next steps weren’t immediately clear Thursday. Simon’s ruling doesn’t foreclose that the two parties could go to trial at a later date, but with election day approaching they may have missed a vital window.
