A bid to compel Portland, Ore., police to put marijuana crimes at the bottom of their priority list has failed to make it onto the November ballot, the Oregonian reported Aug. 8.

Citizens for a Safer Portland submitted 31,623 petition signatures in support of the ballot question -- more than than 26,691 needed -- but election officials disqualified 4,449 because the petition sheets were not properly dated and signed. A second scan of the remaining signatures found that a number of petition signers were not registered voters, leaving organizers short of qualifying.

"The state rule says that if the signature on the circulation sheet doesn't match the signature in the voter registration database perfectly, they throw it out," said organizer Chris Iverson. "A lot of the people gathering for us used shorthand or their initials, because they were doing so many of these sheets. It was obvious it was the same person -- we had W-4s and all kinds of legal documents to prove it -- but because the law is so exacting, we lost those signatures."

Iverson said the group, primarily funded by the Marijuana Policy Project, would try again during the next election cycle.