Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D-Portland) has issued a breathless press release regarding the US Supreme Court's recent decision Brnovich v. DNC. At issue is an Arizona law passed as Arizona HB 2023 in 2016, which made it a felony for anyone other than an election official or a family member or caregiver to handle or collect a completed early voting or absentee ballot, thereby banning "ballot harvesting."

While political operatives in Arizona working with data to direct them to harvest only ballots which support their candidates are committing a felony, in Oregon, local election officials welcome trunks full of ballots arriving at 7:59pm or even later.

According to Secretary Fagan:

“The Supreme Court’s decision today is a catastrophic outcome for voting rights across our country. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, 'The Voting Rights Act is ambitious, in both goal and scope. When President Lyndon Johnson sent the bill to Congress, ten days after John Lewis led marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he explained that it was ‘carefully drafted to meet its objective—the end of discrimination in voting in America’.

This stands in contrast to Oregon who has continued make it easier for Oregonians to cast their ballot by breaking down barriers to voting. From accepting ballots postmarked on Election Day to providing election information in multiple languages to making it simple and easy to register, Oregon continues to lead the way.

The Supreme Court has kicked away the foundation of the Voting Rights Act, effectively allowing the disenfranchisement of American voters, especially those who’ve historically been prevented from exercising this sacred right. To again quote the dissent by Justice Elena Kagan, 'What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten—in order to weaken—a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses. What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about the end of discrimination in voting.'"

As Oregon effectively forces voter registration on voters through Motor Voter -- and now Welfare Voter and Medicaid Voter -- the number of ballots in the hands of low-interest voters is higher than ever and a clever ballot harvesting scheme can easily tip the election in favor of those who aren't inclined by their own will to actually cast a ballot.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Many observers agree that banning ballot harvesting is a far cry from a "catastrophic outcome" and that ballot harvesting is as much an influence on elections as poll taxes or literacy tests. Though this ruling doesn't directly impact Oregon -- ballot harvesting will still be legal -- it shows that the court is inclined to consider such practices as shady and worthy of banning and a tactic that one can't help but think that Secretary Fagan may be hoping to use in a future run for Governor.


--Mike Nearman

Post Date: 2021-07-01 10:34:02

Last Update: 2021-07-06 19:51:20