Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has requested SB 166, which at first glance, it appears to protect voters and election workers. Fagan testified, “We build trust by removing barriers to voting, providing accurate information, and supporting Oregon’s 36 county clerks who process ballots and report accurate results.”

Fagan presents the Election Security Bill (SB 166) as having three security pillars that will help restore public confidence in our elections systems.

• Affirming the right to vote and she says, “the right to a secret ballot is an important fundamental right for Oregonians would help reassure voters that their vote is secure and that their ballot is their own business.” What the Secretary fails to mention is the bill seriously limits public records requests and gives her full authority to define by rule what information would be public or withheld. She is also allowed to determine security measures, and the bill expands the definition of security plan as to what is confidential.
• Expands protecting the safety of election workers passed in 2022 under HB 4144, which enacted misdemeanor penalties for threatening or harassing election workers. Fagan based replacing the penalty with a Class C felony on the January 6 Report, not on any incident in Oregon since the passage of HB 4144 that would support increasing the penalty.
• Improving elections security at the county level allowing the Secretary of State additional time and greater ability to evaluate the threat that environment security plans are intended to address, by adding cybersecurity and physical security to their scope, and by requiring security plans to be consistent with best practices as defined by federal authorities. Aggravated harassment is already a Class C felony in ORS 166.070(2) and for computer (device) crimes in ORS 164.377.

Secretary Fagan has her comical video campaign to reassure voters that there is transparency throughout the voting system, all the while she was telling clerks to find reasons to increase charges for public requests to discourage requests. Now she wants to frighten observers away, and virtually eliminate any useful information through public requests.

SB 166's most aggressive attack against fair and transparent elections is the expanding of confidential information that includes the security plan, and all communications relating to the development and review of a security plan that is filed by the county clerks. It includes all their procedures, security agreements, cybersecurity procedures for the process of casting and tallying ballots, storing, scanning, pre-voting tally system checks, post-election ballot security, and any other security measure the Secretary requires by rule.

This goes directly back to the case of Washington County vs. Tim Sippel in which Washington County was joined by Attorney General, Ellen Rosenblum, and the Secretary of State Shemia Fagan to prevent the release of the voting SQL zip file saying the public has no interest or need to know. The SQL files are the tests run on the machines prior to the elections to see that the machines are operating correctly. It takes data from various tables it has access to, and it can manipulate that data to come up with an answer according to its protocol.

After this case came to light, the Secretary encouraged counties to increase their fees to discourage requests for Cast Vote Records. What the citizens group “Clean Voter Rolls” discovered was what was once $30 to $465 went up to a high at $982,896.17 from Jackson County, $93,000 in Deschutes County and $52,000 in Douglas County, and many others were in tens of thousands as a result. Washington County Deputy District Attorney Jason Ring wrote in review of a $65,223.50 fee, “we find on these facts that the amount of this fee in comparison to the nature of the request “suggests” that its true purpose is to constructively deny the request.” He further notes that the Secretary was looking for ways to respond to legitimate requests while discouraging others.

Ring writes, “this reporting demonstrates that elections officials strongly disapprove of elections-related public records requests.” Meaning, they don’t want the public watching over their shoulders. Ironically, progressive San Francisco publishes the Cast Vote Record on their website after the election for everyone to see.

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

Janice Dysinger, Oregonians for Fair Elections and Election Integrity, is a seasoned veteran on public record requests. She has been requesting Cast Vote Records for years, which is a computer print-out of the tabulators as they progress through the election. She says, “it is the only document we can see if anything happened in our election that was irregular. There is little any citizen can do to check the security and truth of the election without these reports.” In her experience, the county used to print out all the actions the tabulators took as the ballots progressed through the count. But the printout was done away with when votes started to be counted prior to election day. Now this record accumulates in the tabulators and is easily produced from a simple command.

Dysinger says, “SB 166 is using voter security to keep me from regular records requests because a few people might have written their name on their ballot. A lot of effort goes into keeping voters unidentified, but if a voter writes their name on their ballot, they are choosing to be identified.” District Attorney Ring concluded the same thing in his opinion on the Washington County data.

SB 166 will prohibit the public from this information. One county told Dysinger that the vendor instructed them not to release Cast Vote Records because it contained proprietary information. That type of harassment and intimidation isn’t covered in SB 166. It is obvious the Secretary of State does not want the public to have a transparent voting system.

According to Dysinger, if SB 166 passes, a voter can never challenge an election result or have any valid means to prove the simplest fraudulent acts or to request a forensic audit.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2023-03-26 08:48:05

Last Update: 2023-03-26 09:58:00