Summary: Oregon’s radical Initiative Petition 28, which seeks to outlaw hunting, fishing, and commercial animal agriculture, has failed its initial state signature verification check but remains under review for a secondary sample.
Sportsmen and conservationists in Oregon have secured a crucial, though temporary, sigh of relief. A radical ballot measure aiming to effectively outlaw hunting, fishing, and modern animal agriculture across the state has stumbled out of the gate, failing its first official state signature verification check.
Initiative Petition 28 (IP 28)—backed by an anti-hunting group calling itself the “People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions,” or the PEACE Act—seeks to completely ban the commercial slaughter of animals alongside all hunting and fishing in Oregon.
According to a report by the Willamette Week, a spokesperson for Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read confirmed that the state’s Elections Division initial random sample of signatures failed to meet the mandatory validity threshold.
The campaign submitted 142,784 total signatures on July 2. To officially qualify for the November ballot, the petition requires 117,173 verified, valid signatures. Mathematically, this means the anti-hunting campaign needs at least an 82% validity rate across their submitted signatures.
However, they fell short during the state’s preliminary vetting process. David Michelson, the primary architect of IP 28, confirmed via email to the Willamette Week that the Secretary of State’s office found only 804 of the 1,000 signatures included in the first random sample to be valid—amounting to an 80.4% success rate.
What Happens Next?
While this failure is a notable warning sign for the anti-hunting petition, the measure is not entirely dead yet. Under Oregon election rules, when a petition fails the first round of verification, the Elections Division draws a second, significantly larger sample of signatures to review.
If the petition fails to hit the required validity threshold during this second round of testing, it will be officially blocked from appearing on the November ballot. State officials confirmed they are currently in the process of verifying this second batch of signatures.
Beyond targeting sports enthusiasts, IP 28 has drawn fierce criticism from Oregon’s agricultural and farming communities. The measure aims to criminalize standard agricultural practices, such as animal castration, artificial insemination, and routine rodent or pest control—provisions that farming groups warn would wreak economic havoc across the state.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance will continue to monitor the Oregon Elections Division as they process the secondary signature sample.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing, and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler, and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square, and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions.
Stay connected to the Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
