Oregon law provides an easy return to paper ballot only, neighborhood in-precinct voting, the tallying of votes occurring in your community where you know your neighbors. All on the same day. Provisions, of course, are made for absentee ballots, like the military, etc.
Oregon Revised Statutes 254.485 allows for a return to a system all voters can understand. There is major distrust of the system by Democrats, Republicans, other political parties and non-affiliated voters which are now the largest voting population in Oregon.
Both Senator Wyden and Representative Blumenauer spoke of that threat to our Republic. Wyden said, "Business as usual with the voting machine is an imminent threat, a clear and present danger to our democracy."
Neighbors can observe the counting boards in process, directly. A board consists of 4 people at a table, two Democrats and two Republicans, and maybe others. The number of boards is determined by size of precinct and how big the election might be.
A lawsuit filed against the Oregon Secretary of State, "22-cv-1516 (D. Or.), filed on October 8, 2022, the class action lawsuit seeks a declaration that mail-in voting and computer tabulation of the votes are unconstitutional because voters lack confidence in the integrity of our elections", like a salmon swimming up the Columbia River oral arguments are now to be heard December 6, 2023 at the 9th Circuit Court. It will, likely, as court cases do, make it up to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Stephen J. Joncus, attorney for the class action suit, in the United States District Court June 23, 2023, in oral argument said:
Citizens, like Tim Sippel and Janice Dysinger, were rebuffed and rebuked for simply trying to do we, the people, good citizen duties and oversight. Dysinger was told one time she needed to fork over $99,000 to get copies of public records.
Janice (in photo with Stephen Joncus) first went to poll watch in 2008. The set up included the watchers were kept behind a glass wall (still done that way today) which made it hard to see. Poll watchers used binoculars then and today. They caught some election workers covering up votes for McCain (white stickers were to be used back then to cover up errors before running through the machines) and marking ovals for Obama. Notified, the Election managers just told the workers committing election fraud, "Don't do that." Janice has worked every year since to be the eyes and ears for all citizen voters, giving out the clarion call something was amiss.
Observing since 2018, a core group of Multnomah County Elections poll watchers has come to the conclusion after four years, that the public test, chain of custody, signature verification, adjudication and the random audit after the election process are simply theater.
Whether Multnomah County Elections officials, wittingly or unwittingly, do not know this or understand this, is unknown.
The reality, after four years of hoping to be able to assure voters they can trust this system, observers are not able to give such an assurance.
Poll watchers cannot peer inside the tabulation machines, thus essentially they have nothing to "observe". They can only see people walking around, putting paper ballots into a machine which turns the original paper ballot into a digitized copy of the ballot. A request is in to Multnomah County Elections for a number of public records, and questions that were not answered in December 2022, to be answered now.
The October 4, 2023 training, held in Salem, had about 40 poll watchers from nine of Oregon's thirty-six counties in attendance. Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Columbia, Linn, Lane, Marion and Clatsop counties. The next training already has one hundred poll watchers signed up.
The materials, the forms and training created and given by Linda Rantz was easy to use and easy to understand. After a few rounds the process clipped along at a good pace, a rhythm sets in, efficient and effective.
And Sharpies, sharpies of many colors will now be a good thing.They will bleed through and that's a good thing. Poll workers don't have to neatly "fill in" an oval, just a quick mark.
Also, in this system the race being counted is not counted by name, just by numbers. In this system just by numbers increases the efficiency in tallying races and measures, as well if anyone wanted to cheat they couldn't. Oregon counties can easily choose this system.
Before telling the recorders the number, the judges have already adjudicated the ballot right then and there. If there is one they can't agree on...that goes to be further adjudicated.
Voting in person, in your neighborhoods can be a return to community.
After the Oregon's crazy shutdown/lockdown years started by Governor Kate Brown in 2020, a new sense, a renewed sense and appreciation of community may well return.
Electronic fatigue with all the computer stuff, the machines that have inundated people's lives starting big time in the 2000s has set in?
Folks wanting more community again?
The intangible benefit with a return to in-precinct voting, only on Election Day, includes getting your ballot there, if you mess up your ballot there, you can get another one there, and vote there in a private booth so that you do, indeed, have a secret ballot vote.
Social media has been replete with many wives telling the world that they fill out their husbands' ballots. Ouch.
VOTING by SECRET BALLOT is a BIG CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT!
Stay tuned for the report on the next training coming up soon in Oregon. One hundred have signed up, may have 150 by the next training.
