Two candidates have filed more than 1,000 signatures this afternoon in an effort to qualify for $150,000 in taxpayer funds to run against City Commissioner Dan Saltzman. Jesse Cornett filed 1,253 signatures, 253 more than the 1,000 required for public campaign financing, this afternoon at around 3:30. Jason Renaud filed 1,045 signatures at around 4:30.

Cornett is very optimistic about qualifying for public campaign financing.

Ed Garren, who has withdrawn from public financing, filed as a private candidate this afternoon. Mary Volm, meanwhile, withdrew from public financing yesterday and filed as a private candidate, while Spencer Burton also did the same thing a day earlier. Rudy Soto, who filed for office, and for public campaign financing, with a week to go before the deadline, did not show up with any contributions this afternoon. Meanwhile Martha Perez also filed for privately financed candidacy this afternoon with 15 seconds to spare, having run against Randy Leonard last time. "This is my second time," she said. "So I thought, just give it a chance."

Renaud, meanwhile, plans to fix a few details with the forms over the coming days. "We're taking advantage of the process to make sure that everybody who intended to contribute gets to contribute," says Renaud. "I think it's going to be close, it all counts. This is a grassroots effort with 170 volunteers. We had a volunteer get married, we've had a volunteer get divorced, we've had several volunteers go to the psychiatric hospital. We've had volunteers that are homeless, volunteers that are elderly."

Trouble is, Renaud is unlikely to qualify, according to Andrew Carlstrom, City Elections Officer.

"We verified the first 338 of his forms on Tuesday, and 69 were rejected," says Carlstrom, City Elections Officer. "The total number of forms he submitted was 1045, so mathematically, he's not going to make 1,000."

Still, Renaud wasn't going to speculate about his chances this afternoon. He's going to Mount Rainier for the weekend—even filed in his Wellington boots.

"I need to get this shit out of my head," he said.

Cornett's first 310 signatures were verified Wednesday, of which just 22 were rejected. "If it was at that rate, he could make it, but we don't know," says Carlstrom. Volm's first 306 signatures were verified Tuesday, of which just 15 were rejected. Burton's first 300 signatures were verified December 30, of which 75 were rejected.

Carlstrom has ten business days to finish the verification of the signatures, until February 5. "But we're hoping to get done a lot sooner than that," he says.

He's looking to find contributors who aren't registered, who reside out of Portland's limits, who have moved without reporting a change of address, or whose contribution was reported to the campaigns more than 14 days ago.