Two related stories today highlight the problems with Oregon’s voter registration system and an online voting portal which makes it easy for bad actors to vote online in Oregon’s elections.
Is there time to fix things before November 5th?
No, but there is time to elect Dennis Linthicum as Oregon’s next Secretary of State to fix this mess.
Judicial Watch Sues Oregon to Force Clean Up of Voter Rolls—Lawsuit Alleges Oregon Has One of the Worst Voting Lists in the Nation
In its complaint, Judicial Watch argues that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserts that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon has the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation.
In combination, all of these facts show that Oregon is failing to remove inactive registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oregon, Eugene Division, to compel the defendants to comply with their voter list maintenance obligations under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
“Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Oregon has among the dirtiest voting rolls in America and needs to clean them up ASAP!”
Judicial Watch is being assisted by Stephen Joncus of Joncus Law PC in Happy Valley, Oregon.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/oregon-clean-up-voter-rolls/
The Federalist today reported on how easy the Oregon Secretary of State’s website makes it for a dishonest person overseas to cast a ballot in the November elections.
Oregon’s Voting Portal Appears To Let Anyone Cast An Overseas Voter’s Ballot With Just His Name And Birthday
Oregon’s voting portal lets anyone log into an Oregon resident’s voter account using only his name and birthday — and once logged into a voter’s account, it appears that a bad actor could use the online tool to cast the ballots of overseas voters by email. For that matter, the system doesn’t appear to protect against someone fraudulently casting ballots in the names of domestic voters by claiming to be overseas.
Oregon’s online elections portal, “MyVote,” lets anyone access residents’ registration information by entering a resident’s first and last name and birthday — which are often available online. From there, a fraudster could hypothetically mark a resident’s ballot, claim he is an overseas voter, and then submit the resident’s marked ballot by fax or email, according to whistleblower Cara Tapken, an Oregon resident, who showed The Federalist how the portal works.
After logging into the service, operated by Democrat Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, one can access a voter’s address and party affiliation, along with an online ballot-marking tool that can be used to fill out a ballot for the resident, Tapken showed The Federalist. In at least some cases, the site asks for the resident’s zip code (which is visible on the voter information page) before allowing access to the ballot-marking system.
This tool is supposed to be limited to overseas or disabled voters, and “all other voters should use the printed ballots received directly from their county elections office,” the website reads, according to Tapken. But the same online portal allows a person to claim overseas status if he wants to potentially submit a ballot by fax or email. The Federalist asked Laura Kerns, communications director for the secretary of state’s office, how Oregon verifies the overseas status of those who use the portal claiming to be overseas voters and submit ballots via fax or email — and whether Oregon even attempts verification — but she failed to provide an answer.
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Republican state Sen. Dennis Linthicum told The Federalist the state elections system has no barriers to keep bad actors from gaining access and flooding officials with fraudulent ballots. Linthicum has held office since 2017, and he is now the party’s nominee for secretary of state.
“There’s nothing in place,” Linthicum said. “Welcome to Oregon, we make everything easy.”
He said Oregon does not require a full Social Security number for voters to register. He also took issue with the state accepting “personal attestation,” or voters’ claims that they are eligible, at face value.
“The Democrat majority has engineered this freeway to fraud. This isn’t accidental. None of this is accidental. This is purposeful,” Linthicum said.
Richard Emmons is the publisher and editor of the Oregon Eagle.