The Oregon Elections Division announced that Oregon has hit a new milestone of 3 million registered voters. “Oregonians are voters,” Secretary of State Shemia Fagan said. “Over the last 40 years, Republicans and Democrats in Oregon have worked together to build a system that is consistently ranked as the most accessible voting system in America. Just like our beautiful coast and mountain ranges, strong Tribal partnerships, or events like the Pendleton Round-up, voting is something Oregonians take pride in.”

Representative Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) sponsored HB 2681, passed in 2021, which changed the retention of inactive voters to remain on active voter rolls from 10 years to no expiration. It required reregistering 525,918 inactive voters putting them back on the active voter rolls. Past voters moving out of state are never cleared from the voter rolls unless they notify the state. States do not cross-check voter registrations even though there is an Interstate Crosscheck Program and the Electronic Registration Information Center, which allows comparison of voter list data, motor vehicle data, change of address data and death records.

HB 2681 required county clerks to mail voter notification to inactive voters with a current address between 60 and 70 days before date of both 2022 primary election and the 2022 general election. Only 17,376 had valid addresses with an estimated cost to counties of $34,752.

Janice Dysinger, Oregonians for Fair Elections, said ORS 247.012 is an underlying issue, which “only requires that the voter give their name, resident address, date of birth and signature to register to vote. It does not require any ID. ORS 247.035-038 does not require any actual physical address to establish a residency. The voter only needs to think of Oregon as their home and that they intend to return here someday. Any landmark can be the person’s address to register. No proof or any type of documentation is required. These are very loose standards,” Dysinger said in testimony. “HB2681 will perpetuate inaccurate addresses for people whom we cannot verify as actual real people. The scenarios are endless on how this could be abused.”

Oregon People’s Vote representatives say their experience canvassing to clean voter rolls has found 20-30 percent anomalies. They are taking declarations and to date they have at least seven that could be turned over to the sheriff for criminal investigation. A crime only takes place when the ballot is voted. They will pursue more declarations after the election to have enough that they can’t deny attention.

Secretary Fagan said Oregon voter registration has been steadily climbing since the state passed an automatic voter registration law, known as the Oregon Motor Vote Law, in 2016. Vote by mail, automatic voter registration and other Oregon-led innovations are why the state was recently ranked as the most accessible state for voting in the country.

A vulnerable part of Oregon’s election system is stealing ballots. Voter fraud ensues with the ability to have access to inactive voters. So being the most accessible state does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with secure elections.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2022-11-06 06:42:06

Last Update: 2022-11-06 11:54:44