Oregon

Oregon: With a national vote-by-mail fight ahead, Central Oregon leaders say some damage is already done | Jen Baires/OPB

A handful of Central Oregon’s elected leaders representing all levels of government gathered at Bend City Hall Wednesday afternoon to push back against President Donald Trump’s recent attempts to overhaul the country’s voting system. Oregon voters turn out to vote at some of the highest rates in the nation, ever since the state led the country in adopting an all vote-by-mail system more than 25 years ago. On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order to create a federal voter database and require the U.S. Postal Service to process mail-in ballots with specialized envelopes and barcodes for tracking. With a national vote-by-mail fight ahead, Central Oregon leaders say some damage is already done - OPB

Oregon: Federal judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit seeking voter rolls | Claire Rush/Associated Press

A federal judge in Oregon dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls on Monday in another setback to wide-ranging efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to get detailed voter data from states. In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he would dismiss the suit and issue a final written opinion in the coming days. The updated docket for the case showed that Oregon’s move to dismiss the case was granted. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the move. “The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” he said in an emailed statement. “Oregonians deserve to know that voting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab their personal information.” Read Article

Oregon won’t need to hand over unredacted voter rolls to Trump administration | Alan Riquelmy/Courthouse News Service

A federal judge overseeing a legal battle between the federal government and Oregon over its voter list tentatively ruled in favor of the state Wednesday in its bid to withhold the data. U.S. District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai engaged in a back-and-forth with attorneys during a daylong hearing held on Oregon’s motion to dismiss. The federal government sought unredacted voter information from the Beaver State, including voters’ full dates of birth and driver’s license numbers. Oregon has said the law doesn’t require the disclosure of that data. Instead, it pointed to a publicly available list anyone can access. Read Article

Oregon’s secretary of state expands online voter registration eligibility to all residents | Keely Quinlan/StateScoop

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read announced Tuesday that all eligible residents can register to vote online using a digital form, even if they do not have a state-issued driver’s license. Previously, only Oregonians with driver’s license numbers could register to vote online. Now they can register to vote online by providing the last four digits of a Social Security number and a signature, just as they would on a paper voter registration form, the office said. The office said the online voter registration form maintains the security of Oregon’s voter registration system while expanding access. According to an announcement, elections officials will carefully verify the Social Security numbers and signatures submitted before registering voters. Read Article

Oregon: Trump administration sues Oregon for refusing to turn over voter data | Bryce Dole/OPB

The federal government accuses Oregon and Secretary of State Tobias Read of “failing to provide information regarding voter list maintenance procedures and electronic copies of statewide voter registration lists,” a Tuesday press release said. It also sued the state of Maine and its secretary of state. “States simply cannot pick and choose which federal laws they will comply with, including our voting laws, which ensure that all American citizens have equal access to the ballot in federal elections,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, is the latest action by President Donald Trump’s administration to curb what they see as voter fraud. In August, the administration sent requests to Read’s office asking for the state to provide voter information and prove that it’s taking steps to root out ineligible voters. Read Article

Oregon Rejects DOJ’s Request To Share Private Voter Data, Citing Concerns of Unlawful Use | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

In a detailed letter, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read rejected an offer to meet with prosecutors in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) criminal division to discuss a potential agreement to share private voter data with the federal government. As part of the DOJ’s recent effort to obtain sensitive voter data from every state, prosecutors from the department’s criminal division have contacted some states requesting a meeting “to discuss a potential information-sharing agreement” to feed the department private voter information to help assist its hunt for voter fraud. “With your cooperation, we plan to use this information to enforce Federal election laws and protect the integrity of Federal elections,” reads the email sent July 10 by Scott Laragy, principal deputy director for the executive office for United States attorneys, and Paul Hayden, senior counsel in the DOJ’s criminal division. Read Article

Oregon: Trump administration challenges  state over voter rolls in lawsuit | Dirk VanderHart/Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Trump administration is wading into a court fight over whether Oregon does enough to scrub its voter rolls of ineligible voters. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would file a “statement of interest” in an ongoing suit between a number of conservative plaintiffs and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. The U.S. DOJ says it is watching the case closely for signs Oregon violated a federal law, the National Voter Registration Act. Trump administration challenges Oregon over voter rolls in lawsuit - OPB

Oregon’s access to federal election security funds at risk | Anastasia Mason/Salem Statesman Journal

Oregon could lose out on $272,727 in election security funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission following updated requirements that states agree to follow an executive order from President Donald Trump on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Secretary of State Tobias Read said he has not yet decided whether he will sign the agreement. "We really can't make a decision until we know more, because the Trump administration has not done a good job of writing these requirements in a way that's understandable," Read told the Statesman Journal. "It's not clear what they mean by 'DEI,' for example." Read Article

Oregon bill that would require county election clerks to livestream voting processes sparks concerns | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

A proposed bill that would require every Oregon county election office to livestream its vote tabulation processes could improve trust in the state’s elections, its proponents say. But officials who’d have to implement the bill, which was introduced by a Republican senator, say it would be costly and logistically difficult. Senate Bill 1054 would require each of Oregon’s 36 county clerks to livestream footage of the rooms in which ballots are counted and from ballot drop sites during election seasons. It would also require those officials to store those recordings for two years. Read Article

Oregon: Controversial proposal to take away vote by mail results in heated debate | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

A controversial bill that could repeal Oregon’s vote by mail system resulted in a heated public hearing Monday afternoon, as dozens of individuals argued for and against scrapping the state’s first-in-nation voting system. Senate Bill 210, sponsored by Republican Sens. David Brock Smith and Kim Thatcher, would ask voters to decide in November 2026 whether to retain Oregon’s vote by mail system, which has been in place for more than two decades. The proposed measure would also require voters to present a government-issued ID when voting in person and would limit mail-in voting to citizens who are unable to vote in person. Read Article

Oregon: Federal cuts to election security programs spark concerns among elections officials | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

Oregon election officials say they are worried that recent cuts to federal cybersecurity programs may leave the state’s election systems more vulnerable to attack. For years, local election officials have relied on federal programs to monitor threats, assess election security infrastructure and coordinate response plans. Federal officials hold regular security briefings with state and local officials, according to Tess Seger, spokesperson for the Oregon secretary of state. But those safeguards are now in jeopardy after the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last week cut funding for a program that monitors cybersecurity threats across states and helps local officials respond. Read Article

Oregon election officials clear up confusion about ballot counting | Aviva Bechky/The Oregonian

Oregon’s elections office reassured residents Thursday that this fall’s ballot counting is sound and accurate, after some Oregonians questioned the office’s ballot return reports. The confusion stemmed from two documents the office posted online that showed how many ballots county elections offices had received each day, including on Election Day and the day after. The inconsistency that social media users noticed is that an initial state report, released Nov. 6, said about 2,140,000 ballots had been returned by end of day Nov. 5, Election Day. A second report generated on Nov. 14 said that Oregon voters turned in nearly 5,000 more ballots on Nov. 6 — but that the state somehow surpassed 2,300,000 ballots cast in total that day. Read Article

Oregon: U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear  lawsuit that sought to end mail voting | Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle

On the eve of Oregon’s primary election, a group of Republican candidates and election deniers learned they won’t get to make their case to the U.S. Supreme Court to end Oregon’s mail voting system. The high court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from plaintiffs, including state Sen. Dennis Linthicum, the leading Republican candidate for secretary of state, in a case that sought to overturn the method Oregon voters have used to vote in every election for decades. The Supreme Court didn’t give a reason for declining to hear the case, Thielman v. Fagan. Marc Thielman, a former school superintendent who captured 8% of the vote in his sixth-place finish in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary, led several other Republicans in suing then-Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in October 2022. Read Article

Oregon elections officials meet with USPS after delays reported in some ballot returns | Dirk VanderHart/OPB

Oregon elections officials met with representatives from the United States Postal Service on Thursday morning, after concerns emerged that some post offices across the state were delaying delivery of completed ballots sent by mail. “In no uncertain terms, they have said, ‘We will fix this. This should not be happening,’” said Molly Woon, the state’s elections director. “We continue to have complete faith in the vote-by-mail system.” While Woon acknowledged that filled-out ballots have been delayed in reaching elections offices in Lincoln, Douglas and possibly other counties, she said those delays will not impact timeliness of results in the May 21 primary election if postal officials follow through on their promise. Read Article

Oregon: County clerks say 2020 election deniers make their jobs tougher | Peter Wong/Portland Tribune

Elected officials in two Oregon counties, Marion and Polk, disclosed the impact of false claims about the 2020 presidential election on election workers, leading to retirements and resignations. The statements followed a report commissioned by the state Elections Division, revealing that approximately one-third of top election managers across the state's counties have left since 2020 due to false claims undermining trust in elections. Read Article

Oregon: Petitioners fail to put hand-counting on the ballot in Douglas County | Roman Battaglia/Jefferson Public Radio

Three board members of the Douglas County Republican Party have faced repeated denials in their attempt to get a petition approved, which aims to require the county to hand-count ballots in future elections. They've submitted six petitions since last year, all of which have been denied by the County Clerk. The latest proposal was turned down in mid-October. One of the petitioners argues that electronic voting machines lack transparency and cannot be checked by the public, emphasizing the importance of decentralized decision-making in the electoral process. The County Clerk maintains that the latest petition did not meet the requirements of being a matter of county concern and legislative, and declined to offer further clarification. The Secretary of State's office states that these terms do not have official definitions, leaving it up to the county clerk to assess if the initiative aligns with state constitutional requirements. Read Article

Oregon: Federal judge tosses lawsuit over mail voting, tabulation machines | Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to end mail voting and electronic voting tabulation in Oregon, stating that the plaintiffs, a group of unsuccessful Republican candidates and election deniers, lack standing to sue. The plaintiffs alleged that Oregon's computerized vote tabulation and mail-in voting systems violated their constitutional rights, but the judge ruled that their claims were generalized grievances and lacked evidence. The lawsuit relied on a film by right-wing commentator Dinesh D'Souza, which had been debunked by election experts. The case is part of several attempts by election deniers to discredit elections in Oregon and elsewhere. Read Article

Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigns over cannabis side job | Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle

Secretary of State Shemia Fagan will resign next Monday, a little more than a week after news broke of her moonlighting for a troubled cannabis company that played a key role in an audit conducted by her office. It’s an abrupt fall from grace for Fagan, next in line for governor and long viewed as a rising star in state Democratic politics. Political watchers have speculated that she would run for governor, Congress or the U.S. Senate in the coming years, and she had already announced plans to seek re-election in 2024. Fagan submitted her resignation by email to Gov. Tina Kotek at 2:26 p.m. Tuesday, several hours after she told Kotek and announced it publicly, according to documents shared by the Secretary of State’s office. “While I am confident that the ethics investigation will show that I followed the state’s legal and ethical guidelines in trying to make ends meet for my family, it is clear that my actions have become a distraction from the important and critical work of the Secretary of State’s office,” Fagan wrote. “Protecting our state’s democracy and ensuring faith in our elected leaders – these are the reasons I ran for this office,” she continued. “They are also the reasons I am submitting my resignation now.” Full Article: Fall of a rising star: Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigns over cannabis side job – Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon: 18-year-old helps uncover software glitch that failed to register 8,000 voters | Dianne Lugo/Salem Statesman Journal

An error in place for the past six years failed to pre-register nearly 8,000 Oregonians to vote, according to a release from the Oregon Secretary of State's office. The error has since been fixed and ballots are expected to be mailed later this week to ensure the 7,767 eligible voters affected are able to participate in the November General Election. Discovery of the error was prompted by a call from a young voter, according to Ben Morris from the Oregon Secretary of State's office. The voter had not received their ballot as they had expected after visiting the DMV when they were 16 years old. Any Oregonian with a qualifying interaction with their DMV usually has voting information automatically sent to the Oregon Secretary of State's office to register or update voter registration information. After looking into their records, the office discovered Friday that a software error had not triggered the process correctly for the 18-year-old as it should have, Morris said. "In reviewing the software, that's when they discovered the error in how it was written," Morris added. More specifically, the software at the Secretary of State’s office that handles the transfer was incorrectly written and failed to pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds whose birthdays fall within one month of their DMV interaction. Leadership of the Elections and Information Systems Division at the Oregon Secretary of State’s office met Friday afternoon to determine the number of affected voters, the release said. Full Article: Teen helps Oregon uncover registration error affecting 8K

Oregon secretary of state orders extensive post-election audit in Clackamas County | Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle

Clackamas County must perform a more extensive post-election audit than other counties because of its ballot-printing issues, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan ordered Friday. After every election, the secretary of state directs each county to hand-count votes in at least two races on randomly selected batches of ballots to compare with machine-tabulated results. Fagan on Friday said Clackamas County must do more to rebuild trust with voters after a printing issue that delayed results and constantly changing statements from County Clerk Sherry Hall, who oversees elections. “My mission as Oregon’s secretary of state is to build trust,” Fagan said. “But let’s face it, weeks of negative headlines eroded Oregonians’ trust in elections. Even though processing the votes in Clackamas County was slow, it is now my responsibility to confirm that it was done correctly so voters can trust the election results.” Two weeks before the May 17 election, and after ballots had already been sent out, Hall learned that a portion of the county’s ballots had been printed with defective barcodes. That printing error didn’t affect any of the contests on a ballot, but it meant tabulation machines couldn’t detect which races were on a specific ballot. Fixing it meant county election workers, working in teams of two, needed to hand-copy each defective ballot onto a new ballot with a usable barcode. That takes about three minutes per ballot, with one member of the team reading off votes, the second filling out a new ballot and then switching roles to ensure the two ballots match. Full Article: Oregon secretary of state orders extensive post-election audit in Clackamas County – Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon: Two-thirds of Clackamas County ballots will need to be duplicated by hand due to printing error | Jamie Goldberg/The Oregonian

The vast majority of ballots that Clackamas County election officials sent to voters have defective barcodes making them unreadable by voting counting machines, an error that will cost the county extra money and delay election results. County Clerk Sherry Hall said Wednesday that about two-thirds of the ballots that have been returned to the county so far are marred by the error and require that the voter’s choice in each race be duplicated by hand. The county is preparing for a similar percentage of ballots returned in the coming days to have the same issue, she said. Election officials didn’t notice the error before ballots were sent out. Hall said those ballots will still be counted, but the process of tallying those votes will take extra time and money. At least two election workers registered with different political parties will participate in the copying of votes to new ballots, Hall said. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan incorrectly assured reporters multiple times Wednesday that the county would be able to use a machine to transfer the votes onto new ballots and wouldn’t have to do the job by hand. Her office issued a correction Thursday.

Full Article: Two-thirds of Clackamas County ballots will need to be duplicated by hand due to printing error - oregonlive.com

Oregon: Printing error affecting many Clackamas County ballots will require copying votes by hand, raising county costs and delaying election results | Jamie Goldberg/The Oregonian

Clackamas County election officials sent ballots with defective barcodes to an unknown number of voters for the May 17 primary, an error that will cost the county extra money and will likely delay election results. County Clerk Sherry Hall announced Wednesday that a printing error had caused the barcodes on many ballots to be blurred, making them unreadable by the county’s ballot processing equipment. Election officials didn’t notice the error before the ballots were sent to voters. It’s one of at least four errors or misdeeds, one of them criminal, that have marred Clackamas County elections since 2010 and one of two significant mistakes the county elections office made this year. Hall said the defective ballots will still be counted, but the process of tallying those votes will take more time because election workers will have to fill out new ballots by hand for voters whose barcodes were defective. At least two election workers registered with different political parties will participate in the transferring of votes to the new ballots to ensure mistakes are avoided, Hall said. Election observers will witness the process and the county will keep the damaged ballots on file.

Full Article: Printing error affecting many Clackamas County ballots will require copying votes by hand, raising county costs and delaying election results - oregonlive.com

Oregon: New bill introduced to better protect elections officials | Madison LaBerge/KOTI

With elections officials across the country facing increasing threats, including in southern Oregon, a new bill is under consideration in Salem. House Bill 4144 is gaining support from elections officials across the state. It would exempt elections officials from disclosing their addresses in public records. Jackson County’s own elections clerk supports the legislation. “Written in these huge, probably six to eight, possibly even 10 foot letters were: ‘VOTE DON’T WORK’ and then just south of that ‘NEXT TIME BULLETS.’ And it literally just, it threw me off,” said Chris Walker, the Jackson County elections clerk, going into her 14th year. She said threatening vandalism was found in the parking lot across the street from the elections office, just one day after the county certified the 2020 elections results. “I can’t believe the stuff we’ve heard about happening around the country, it’s here and now in our own county — in Jackson County. It was very disheartening, and very disturbing, as well,” said Walker. Full Article: New bill introduced to better protect elections officials - KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2

Oregon legislature passes election worker safety bill | Jamie Parfitt/KGW

Full Article: Oregon legislature passes election worker safety bill | kgw.com

Oregon: Facing threats, elections workers lobby for bill that would increase penalties for harassment | Chris Lehman/The Oregonian

When Jackson County clerk Chris Walker arrived for work on Nov. 24, 2020, she encountered something she’d never experienced in her dozen years on the job. In a parking lot across the street from the elections office, someone had written in bold white paint: “NEXT TIME BULLETS.” “After walking across the street and taking photos, we spent the rest of the day pretty much in shock that this could have happened here,” said Walker. “The noise happening around the country had hit home.” Walker testified to the Oregon House Rules Committee Tuesday in favor of a bill that would increase criminal penalties for people convicted of harassing election workers. The bill would also exempt the home addresses of election workers from certain public records. “The goal is to protect the people who protect our democracy,” said Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in support of House Bill 4144. Fagan said elections workers in Oregon receive threats related to their work and submitted as evidence a portion of a letter that she says was received last month by an Oregon county clerk. “I’m coming after you. You will go down in flames – GUARANTEED!” read the handwritten letter.

Full Article: Facing threats, elections workers lobby for bill that would increase penalties for harassment - oregonlive.com

Oregon: A year after the 2020 election, county clerks still fighting back fraud allegations | Julia Shumway/Malheur Enterprise

A week before this November’s Linn County special election over a tax increase to fund law enforcement, a man walked into the election office and asked to see the county clerk. Steve Druckenmiller walked over and asked how he could help, but the man didn’t want assistance. “I just wanted to see the enemy of my country and the enemy of my God,” Druckenmiller recalled him saying. “And then he started talking in tongues.” Druckenmiller heard the man out, then asked him to leave. It was the first in a series of encounters this election cycle with voters who were supposed to drop off their ballots or fix mismatched signatures on ballot envelopes but instead wanted to criticize Druckenmiller for how his office ran an election a year ago. “This last election, he was the first one, and then on Election Day, I had people come in and they wanted to argue about everything,” Druckenmiller said. “I don’t mind if they want to talk to me like that, but some of these people start with my staff.” It’s been just over a year since more than 159 million Americans, and more than 2.4 million Oregonians, cast their ballots in the 2020 general election and elected Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. In the intervening months, Oregon election officials have run elections for school boards, new local taxes and other ballot propositions. Full Article: A year after the 2020 election, Oregon county clerks still fighting back fraud allegations | Malheur Enterprise

Oregon county clerks inundated with calls for audit of 2020 presidential election | Bill Poehler/Salem Statesman Journal

Eleven months after the 2020 election, county clerks in Oregon are getting a new round of calls and emails disputing the results. Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess said the requests for audits and canvasses of election results in the county have been coming since June. But he said they've picked up in the past few weeks following an audit of a county's election results in Arizona. “People, they’ll come and they’ll start asking the question and then they won’t wait for an answer,” Burgess said. “They’ll start railing away and sometimes with a lot of obscenity and all, too.” In the 2020 presidential election, voters in Marion County swung to Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump by 49.2% to 48%, a margin of 1,870 votes out of 164,308. That was a reversal from the 2016 election when Trump carried the county. Burgess said the calls and emails have also become threatening, including some he's forwarded to the FBI in the past few weeks. He said some of his election staff don't want their photo taken for fear of being tracked. “It seems to go in waves,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t tell if these are direct threats or not.”

Full Article: Spike in calls for Oregon audit of 2020 election after Arizona recount

Oregon: Election-Day postmarked ballots will count | Peter Wong/Bend Bulletin

Oregon, the first state to conduct all elections by mail, would join the ranks of states accepting ballots postmarked by Election Day under a bill that is headed to Gov. Kate Brown. House Bill 3291 was approved by the Oregon Senate without amendment on a 16-13 vote Thursday. The key vote was cast by Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, who hung back until it was clear his would be the deciding vote. Beyer said afterward his concern was that in close elections, voters might question the validity of mail ballots counted days after the election date itself. The bill requires ballots to be received by county elections officials no later than seven days after an election. Brown, in her state of the state remarks earlier this year, endorsed Election-Day postmarks. She is a former secretary of state. Seventeen other states — including California, Washington and Nevada — allow ballots to count if postmarked by Election Day. Four others count ballots if postmarked no later than the day before an election. States that allow Election-Day postmarks vary widely, from three to 20 days after an election.

Full Article: Election-Day postmarked ballots will count in Oregon | Local&State | bendbulletin.com