Clark County elections officials say the Fix Camas group spearheading a referendum petition to send the city of Camas’ new 2% utility tax to voters did not collect the required number of valid signatures.
“To be considered a sufficient petition, a total (of) 2,730 signatures must be valid, which is 15% of the number of registered voters residing within the city of Camas in the last preceding general election,” Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey stated in an email sent to the Fix Camas group and city of Camas officials on March 20.
Of the 3,164 signatures the Fix Camas group sent to the county for signature verification, only 2,639 proved valid, said Cathie Garber, Clark County’s elections director.
“We had our most seasoned team on this signature verification process,” Garber told The Post-Record this week. “We used our best workers to give (the referendum effort) the best chance to be a successful petition.”
According to Garber, the county’s signature-verification team found that the Fix Camas Referendum 1 petitions contained 2,639 valid signatures of Camas voters — 91 signatures short of the required 2,730 signatures. Of the signatures the county rejected: 29 were from people who signed the petition more than once; 252 were from people who were registered voters but were not Camas voters; 153 were from people who were not registered voters; 87 were signatures that did not match the signature in the voter registration file, including some signatures Garber said her staff believed to be “signed by other people;” three had no signature; and one was illegible.