Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan completed a 36-county tour of Oregon’s elections offices today with a visit to Columbia County.

Secretary Fagan said, “In every corner of Oregon, the state of our vote-by-mail system is strong. When I took office, I made it a goal to visit all 36 county elections offices to see their operations and hear directly from election workers about the challenges they face.”

Secretary Fagan predicts a smooth election in November, owing to the integrity of county elections officials. Still she says, “Our democracy is under attack, and our counties are the first line of defense. If every Oregonian could tour their county elections office, we could put to rest much of the false information that spreads from the Big Lie.” What she seems to be saying is that the five filed lawsuits over election improprieties has her office and election procedures under attack, and that isn’t the democratic way to seek the truth.

“Local elections officials are your neighbors, and they are dedicated to Oregon’s democracy," Secretary Fagan said. "Oregon's elections officials understand the value of vote-by-mail and are eager to build trust in our elections. The integrity of Oregon’s elections officials is rock solid.

Fagan claims the operations of county elections offices are transparent. Any voter can observe the pre-election certification of voting machines, the verification of signatures, the counting of ballots, and the post-election audits that verify accurate results in every county. Ensuring that observers have easy access to the process was a common topic of conversation on the tour. That isn’t the information coming from Clatsop County where Republican volunteers were excluded as election workers for signature verification, drop box collections and counting boards.

“Building trust with the public is the most important part of my job,” said Columbia County Clerk Debbie Klug. “Elections workers are part of the community. We are professionals doing extremely important work to make sure Oregon’s elections are free and fair.” Secretary Fagan spoke with the clerk about the County’s challenges — tight budgets, ever-increasing complexity, and false information that she is hearing across all 36 counties.

“Overstretched budgets and unreliable federal funding present a long-term risk to elections in Oregon,” Secretary Fagan said. Did she forget about the $2 million allocated to her in 2021 for election equipment that went unspent. This year legislators reallocated $1 million for postal barcode scanners and other equipment and where is the half that was to be distributed to the counties. The other half she is using on public campaigns and ballot tracking and the remainder is held for emergencies and divided among counties in 2023.

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

Still Fagan says, “In the next legislative session, I will fight for legislation to address this risk.” The legislative proposal currently under consideration would create a commission to study funding needs and make recommendations for creating stable, long-term funding for county elections operations.

Secretary Fagan said that elections officials around the state also voiced concerns about safety, false information, and a flood of public records requests based on conspiracy theories. She claims that in response to the growing threats against election workers and increased challenges of dealing with the spread of false information, 22% of Oregon’s election officials will retire in 2021 and 2022. But is that the reason when county clerks are liable for what goes wrong during an election.

Conspiracy theories seem to be aimed at those seeking the truth. Janice Dysinger, Oregonians for Fair Election, has run head on with Secretary Fagan’s staff trying to silence her from training volunteers the protocols for being an observer and canvass for voter integrity. Fagan’s office has pressured county clerks to raise their rates for public records requests to discourage them. Dysinger says Deschutes County clerk quoted her public records request at $93,000, Douglas County was over $51,000, while Multnomah County charged $159 for the same data. She thinks these records shouldn’t be a burden if they were made available on a website as they are in some counties in California.

“In order to protect our democracy, we must protect the people who make our democracy work,” Secretary Fagan said. “I led the fight to pass the bipartisan Election Worker Protection Act in 2022, but we need to remain vigilant and stay one step ahead of threats.”

One proposal Secretary Fagan will pursue is creating a statewide coordinator for public records requests to help counties deal with a flood of requests for election-related records based on conspiracy theories. Elections officials are also working with local law enforcement on security plans for the November election.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2022-10-19 12:12:57

Last Update: 2022-10-19 16:25:40