Oregon supporters of GMO labeling clear big hurdle for 2014 initiative as they try to woo funders | OregonLive.com

Oregon supporters of GMO labeling clear big hurdle for 2014 initiative as they try to woo funders | OregonLive.com: "Scott Bates, a Tigard software architect and director of GMO Free Oregon, said his group will soon be ready to gather signatures.  However, "we are still absorbing the lessons from" the Washington defeat, he said.  "We're having a gut check at the moment but we're planning on moving forward.""

"The simple big mistake we made was running in an off-off-year election," said Trudy Bialic, public affairs director PCC Natural Markets in Seattle and an author of the initiative. "If we had waited until 2014, I think we would have pulled it out."

In a regular election year, Oregon can expect a much higher turnout.  Since all-mail voting was approved in the state in 1998, turnout in non-presidential general elections has ranged between 69 percent and 72 percent.

Bialic said that her campaign's analysis concluded that they won every age group except seniors, who provided enough of a margin to defeat the measure.  Seniors won't be as big a percentage of the electorate in a high-turnout election, she said.