National news since the November election has been consume with voter fraud scenarios. One of the documented ways is ‘ballot harvesting’ where ballots are delivered to voters that have moved or died, illegally filled out, and submitted for count. HB 2681 capitalizes on this activity to increase the number of stray ballots available for fraudulent submission.

Representative Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) is chief sponsor of HB 2681, which extends the registration of an elector indefinitely preventing removal due to an elector not voting or updating the elector’s registration. It effectively removes Oregon voter roll maintenance and creates the inability to effectively prepare for an accurate election. It is impossible to know who are electors, which opens elections to higher risk for corruption.

The bill states: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the registration of an elector may not be considered inactive due to an elector not voting or updating the elector’s registration for any period of time.”

People register at local colleges and universities that never have their voter record updated from their dorms. Apartment dwellers have numerous ballots delivered to them from all the previous residents. People move out of state and seldom notify the elections office of a move, unless they register to vote from a new address. You would think that with ‘motor voter” registration that addresses would be updated by virtue of driver’s license renewals or lack thereof.

Oregon allows 10 years of inactivity before moving a voter to inactive and remove them from the voter rolls. The National Voter Registration Act only suggests four years before removal. We are way beyond that requirement at 10 years. This bill would remove this safeguard altogether and allow old registrations to pile up, available for harvesting.

The names that do get removed, through notification, each county clerk is required to report to the Secretary of State identifying each voter and reason for moving the name to inactive status during. That is after the county clerk mails a notice to each elector informing them that their registration is now inactive and the reasons. A notice is sent before both the first primary election and the first general election immediately following the inactive date. There is no privacy written in the bill to protect voter status, or the names submitted to the Secretary of State.

Delivering notices increases costs of elections, facilitates voter fraud, discloses protected voter status, and prevents the county clerk to do voter list maintenance.

People move on the average of every four years. Younger people move more often. That adds up quickly.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-03-12 08:31:56

Last Update: 2021-03-12 08:39:23