Oregon Elections Division Hires Sheriff Of Nottingham To Audit Referendum Signatures

By Ruckus Dogood

SALEM, OR — Oregon Governor Tina Kotax announced Tuesday that she has hired the Sheriff of Nottingham to oversee the verification audit of the “No Tax Oregon” referendum petition, which seeks to halt her recent $4.3 billion tax hike until voters weigh in. The petition—which needs over 100,000 valid signatures to refer the bill to voters—surpassed 150,000 within its first nine days, inciting panic at the Capitol and resulting in the drastic measure of hiring the Sheriff of Nottingham to the Elections Division. 

Kotax defended the decision at a press briefing in the Capitol rotunda. “We simply want to ensure all signatures are lawful, equitable, sustainable, inclusive, and properly redistributed,” she said. “No one is better suited to that than Nottingham’s finest.”

Standing beside her, the newly appointed Oregon state petition auditor and former Sheriff of Nottingham unrolled a parchment scroll titled “Progressive Anti-Insurrection Protocols.”

“Good peasants of Oregon,” the Sheriff declared, “signatures collected without royal consent shall be lawfully seized, taxed, or tossed into the moat per sovereign discretion.”

• The Sheriff then announced that signature sheets would now be subject to:

• A parchment authenticity test (failure rate: 93%),

• A signature equity scoring rubric (weighted by zip code and perceived class privilege),

• A penmanship audit (to offset left-handed minority signers)

Kotax emphasized this was not an attempt to undermine democratic processes.

“This is about protecting Oregon from extremism,” she said. “Specifically the extremism of letting voters vote.”

Jefferson County rancher Bill Haggerty held up his signature sheet:

 “I signed my name and the Sheriff fined me twelve shillings for ‘scribbling on a public document.’”

A Portland activist wearing a “Tax Me Harder” T-shirt approved of the move by arguing that the Sheriff of Nottingham is the real Robin Hood.

“Robin Hood stole from the rich,” she said. “And here in Oregon, anyone who drives, owns property, or works full-time fits the bill.”

In Eugene, a confused graduate student protested the patriarchal Sheriff’s presence because “he looks too cis-medieval.” 

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read praised the Sheriff’s methods. “The people cannot be allowed to circumvent the governance process simply because they oppose the governance process,” he explained. When asked whether the state was interfering with a lawful referendum, he tersely replied: “Referendum, shmeferendum.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a sharply worded statement questioning the Governor’s judgment:  “Hiring the Sheriff of Nottingham to audit a tax revolt is, at least, thematically consistent.”

President Trump, commenting by way of Truth Social, was more direct: “I know the Sheriff of Nottingham. Terrible guy. Very weak. Very low-energy. Has a bushel in the wrong end of his britches. This is a total disaster in a long string of disasters for Kotax’s Oregon.”

But ODOT celebrated the development, since it will allow them to snowplow state highways which had been nixed in favor of DEI special projects.

As reporters were ushered out of the Capitol rotunda, the Governor delivered a final message: “Oregon must make hard choices. If voters overturn my tax hike, ODOT will lay off hundreds. But if the Sheriff overturns their signatures, then everyone keeps their job—including me. And in the end, isn’t that what democracy is for?”