Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle

Thousands of Oregonians submitted letters opposing a Republican senator’s long-shot attempt to ask voters whether to repeal the state’s decades-old mail voting law, swamping the Legislature’s website on Monday.

The outcry against Sen. David Brock Smith’s Senate Bill 210 could serve as a preview of what’s to come if his proposal or a separate initiative led by one of Brock Smith’s Republican rivals makes it to the 2026 ballot. Oregonians have voted entirely by mail since 2000, after nearly 70% of voters approved switching to mail ballots in 1998.

A quarter-century later, and after Republican party leaders including President Donald Trump spent years spreading debunked claims of voter fraud, Brock Smith argued that Oregon voters should get to decide again.

“I think it’s time, which is why this is a referral for Oregonians to either reaffirm or deny vote by mail in this state,” the Port Orford Republican said during a Monday hearing of the Senate Rules Committee.

The bill, which is unlikely to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate, would ask voters to approve switching from mail voting to in-person voting on Election Day beginning in 2028. It also would repeal multiple recent laws aimed at making voting easier, including laws that added prepaid ballot-return envelopes and allowed the counting of ballots mailed and postmarked by Election Day that arrive at clerks’ offices up to a week later.

Brock Smith’s proposal would allow people to vote by mail if they’re unable to vote in person on Election Day — if they ask for the ballot at least 21 days before an election and submit a valid Oregon driver’s license, driver permit, state identification card, U.S. passport or military identification card.

Supporters of Oregon’s electoral system have long praised the state’s vote-by-mail system for its convenience. Oregon turnout in both presidential and midterm elections far exceeds the national average, even after automatic voter registration added hundreds of thousands of eligible but unengaged voters to voter rolls beginning in 2016.

But proponents of ending mail voting, including Rep. Court Boice, R-Gold Beach, said convenience shouldn’t be the goal of the state’s electoral system.

“The folks that I represent, the majority, want voting and Election Day to be about responsibility, not about convenience,” Boice said.

Renee Asher lives in rural Coos County, one of the southwest Oregon counties Boice and Brock Smith represent. She attended the hearing virtually to say that she and other neighbors support Oregon’s mail voting.

“I live in a rural community with a lot of people that lack accessibility or ability to get to a polling center,” she said. “We don’t have polling centers here. You have people that work multiple jobs, as I do myself, (and we) do face voter intimidation in our area. I think that it would be a big mistake to repeal mail-in voting.”

Asher was also one of the more than 11,000 Oregonians who submitted written testimony ahead of Monday’s hearing, temporarily breaking the Legislature’s website and slowing it to a crawl for most of the day. More than 85% of the letters submitted opposed Brock Smith’s bill, while testimony in the hearing was more evenly split.

Ayla Hofler said she drove 100 miles from her rural home near Banks to testify for the bill, which she considered the most important of the thousands of bills lawmakers introduced this year.

“We all come out of the hills just fine to vote,” Hofler said. “We’re ready to train our volunteers and get on with the old way. We know what it’s like to have somebody stand in front of us, check our signature, know who we are, put a ballot number to our ballot, and it’s all tallied on the same day.”

Sen. James Manning, a Eugene Democrat who lost the Democratic primary for secretary of state last year, said he spent his campaign traveling the state and talking to voters about how the system could be better. Most of the people he talked to liked voting by mail, especially after the paid postage law he championed a few years ago, he said.

“I’m trying to figure out if this is an issue looking for a problem, because I don’t see it here in our state,” Manning said. “I think that this is a national movement to try to make something of nothing.”

Registered Oregon voters automatically receive ballots at their homes, and they can choose to return them by mail, dropping them in a ballot box or turning them in at their county elections office. They can also opt to vote in person — each county elections office must have at least three private voting booths for voters who want the experience of filling out a ballot in a polling place.

Erin Otey, a night shift nurse at a skilled rehab facility in Oregon City, said she came to testify against the bill on behalf of her patients who are able to exercise their right to vote because they receive ballots by mail.

“These people are bedbound,” she said. “And even people that are housebound wouldn’t have the opportunity to get to an in-person place, and it would put their health further at risk by exposing them to germs and viruses that could actually end their life.”

Catherine Stearns, a retired state worker from Corvallis, said she brags to her out-of-state friends about Oregon’s higher voter participation rates and the state’s innovative approach to elections, including being the first state to adopt mail ballots and automatic voter registration.

“In my opinion, Senate Bill 210 takes a giant leap backwards to a time when things worked only for some of the people,” Stearns said.

Oregon’s Senate Republican leader shared debunked claims from a social media parody account about federal government spending in a state-issued email newsletter decrying “fear-mongering and misinformation.”

Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, dedicated the first 400 words of his official legislative newsletter on Monday night to “cutting through the rhetoric” on several of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders.

“There has been a lot of fear-mongering and misinformation on Trump’s recent executive orders,” Bonham wrote. “While I am not surprised, the rhetoric is absolutely counterintuitive to having intellectually honest policy discussions. Agree or disagree, seeking truth around these policy decisions is important.”

He proceeded to describe examples of “gross mismanagement” uncovered by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, a commission Trump created to slash federal spending. Bonham’s examples included more than half a billion dollars spent on sushi, hundreds of thousands on coffee and thousands on paper coffee cups — but those examples, which have spread like wildfire on conservative social media, aren’t real.

They originated with a Jan. 24, 2025, post on X, Musk’s social media company, by a user named “Not Elon Musk” that is clearly marked and reads as a parody account:

“Good morning X! My experience with DOGE has been totally wild so far. I told you yesterday about the $600 million per year the Pentagon was spending on Sushi…

Well, I just found another wild one! The Air Force was spending $1,280 per paper coffee cup! Like literally those ones you find at the office. $1280!!! We also found that $230k per month was being spent by the IRS on Starbucks Cinammon Roast K Cups, but everyone was working from home!

"Anyway, back to work! Have a great day!”

Right-wing users spread those claims around the internet, posting on Facebook and TikTok but without the parody disclaimer.

And on Monday they made it to Bonham’s newsletter.

In an email to the Capital Chronicle, Bonham said he didn’t know those claims originated from a parody account. He said they’re minor compared to billions “squandered” by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handles most overseas humanitarian aid.

“I’m not without fault, but I definitely didn’t pull it from a parody account,” he said. “Those examples were all over the internet — shared widely. Your question feels like a smoke and mirror attempt to not cover the real issue — the gross mismanagement of spending.”

The Air Force does have a history with expensive coffee cups, but they weren’t paper cups: In 2018, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed the agency for answers on why it spent nearly $1,300 apiece on special reheatable coffee cups that plugged into airplanes. The Air Force used them to heat coffee and soup on long flights and stopped buying them under congressional scrutiny in 2018, the Air Force Times reported.

After questions from the Capital Chronicle, Bonham sent his constituents a second newsletter on Wednesday morning, noting that he received questions about his analysis of federal spending. Moving forward, he wrote, he’ll use official government sources like USASpending.gov and the Government Accountability Office, as well as the nonprofit fiscally conservative watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

And this time, as Bonham decried spending he disagreed with — money for trans health care in Guatemala, purchases of Politico Pro’s legislation tracking and policy newsletters, and “improper” payments of the wrong amount or made to the wrong person — he cited his sources.

“The more I research the worse it gets,” he wrote. “On a positive note, while people are questioning sources of certain waste examples, more attention is brought to this glaring issue — and our nation will be better for it.”

The Oregon agency that issues driver’s licenses erroneously registered more than 300 non-citizens to vote, though state officials say only two people actually cast ballots.

State Elections Director Molly Woon told the Capital Chronicle that she received a call late Thursday afternoon from the administrator of the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services division of the Oregon Department of Transportation, telling her that DMV staff caught a data entry error that led to the division wrongly classifying some noncitizens as citizens. State election officials spent Friday reviewing that information and working with county clerks to ensure those people won’t receive ballots unless and until they prove they’re eligible to vote.

The error is not large enough to impact the outcome of the state’s elections – more than 3 million people are registered to vote in Oregon, and the 306 cases identified by state officials are 0.01% of the state’s voters.

Ben Morris, chief of staff to Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, said the DMV is continuing to investigate whether there are any more issues, and there is time to rectify any additional mistakes. Ballots won’t be mailed to voters for another month.

“We can say that this error will not impact the 2024 election, and I want to emphasize that point as much as possible. This error will not impact the 2024 election,” he said.

The error, first reported by Willamette Week, resulted from DMV staff erroneously marking noncitizens who obtained driver’s licenses as citizens, such as by miscategorizing foreign birth certificates as U.S. birth certificates and foreign passports as U.S. passports.

Since January 2016, Oregon has automatically registered citizens to vote when they obtain or renew driver’s licenses, permits or nonoperating IDs. A 2019 state law, meanwhile, eliminated a requirement that applicants prove they’re citizens or legal residents when obtaining a driver’s license.

People applying for driver’s licenses need to bring proof of their identity – like a birth certificate, passport, naturalization documents or visa – as well as proof of an Oregon address, such as a utility bill or rental agreement. Only applicants who provide documents that prove citizenship, like a U.S. birth certificate, U.S. passport or certificate of naturalization, are supposed to be registered to vote.

DMV administrator Amy Joyce said in a statement that the DMV discovered the error while “proactively analyzing” its system ahead of the 2024 election. The erroneous registrations it identified were based on foreign passports being entered as U.S. passports. The department is continuing to go through registrations tied to birth certificates, and that may take another two weeks, she said.

The DMV added a new prompt on its data entry screen to ensure front desk staff accurately enter citizenship information and has begun daily auditing of all transactions to verify materials are accurate before sending them to the Elections Division, Joyce added.

Woon said the secretary of state’s office is continuing to look into the two people who were not citizens when they were automatically registered to vote and will forward the issue to the start Department of Justice if it appears they violated the law.

“I want to emphasize that these folks were registered by no fault of their own,” she said. “I think that will certainly be taken into consideration. The first order of business, however, will be to see if the citizenship status of these people has changed. Because these records date from 2021 to today, it’s possible that their status has changed, and perhaps they are citizens, and that’s why they have a voter record. We’ll need to do a little bit more digging to sort that out first.”

Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement that she has been fully briefed on the situation and will continue to closely monitor it. She noted that it would affect 0.01% of the state’s registered voters and will not impact the 2024 election in any way.

“Oregon’s electoral system is one of the most secure, effective and accessible in the nation,” Kotek said. “The error in data entry which may have affected the voter eligibility of some Oregonian’s voter registration was discovered because the Oregon DMV and the secretary of state were doing their due diligence ahead of the 2024 election.”

Griffin-Valade said safeguarding the integrity of elections is her top priority, while praising automatic voter registration.

“When my office was made aware of this error, we moved quickly to update the voter rolls,” she said. “I am also personally calling on the DMV to take immediate action to improve its processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Automatic voter registration has been hugely beneficial for thousands of eligible Oregon voters to ensure access to our democracy. I’m confident the DMV is rectifying this error and improving their process, so it doesn’t happen again.”

Lawmakers call for investigations

Lawmakers and U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, called for further investigations Friday evening.

State Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas and the Democratic nominee for the 5th Congressional District, was the first to issue a statement and called on the Department of Justice to conduct a “full-scale investigation.”

“Any errors in this process are unacceptable, and the office of the Secretary of State must be held responsible for any such lapses. I will relentlessly defend our laws and safeguard the integrity of our elections,” she said.

Salinas called the announcement “disturbing,” while emphasizing that it was not an attempt hurt the election system.

“This is total malpractice on the part of the Department of Motor Vehicles and is completely unacceptable,” she said. “I am calling on the state to act quickly to remove these individuals from the rolls, conduct a full and transparent investigation into how this occurred, and provide concrete steps they are taking to remedy this issue and prevent it from happening again. However, I want to emphasize that this was a bureaucratic error by the Oregon DMV and not a systemic attempt to cheat the system by organizations or individuals.”

House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich, who in May publicly questioned the integrity of the state’s election system over hours-long delays delivering ballots, repeated his complaints that Oregon’s election laws are too weak.

“Republicans warned over and over that Oregon’s election laws were too relaxed, and Democrats dismissed our concerns,” he said. “Now, hundreds of noncitizens were found on Oregon’s voter rolls, and the state can’t say how many there are. This threat to election integrity is unacceptable. The Secretary of State must immediately inform the legislature as to the full extent of this problem and what is being done to fix it before ballots go out next month.”

Updated at 9:15 p.m. Sept. 13 with additional comments calling for investigations.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.

A federal complaint filed Tuesday by a Corvallis voter alleges that Republican congressional candidate Monique DeSpain illegally omitted information on her required financial disclosure reports, leaving voters in the dark about potential conflicts of interest.

DeSpain, a retired Air Force colonel, is challenging first-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle in the 4th Congressional District, which includes Eugene and Corvallis as well as the central coast and most of southwestern Oregon. Her campaign has largely focused on presenting herself as a squeaky-clean alternative to Hoyle, who received campaign contributions from and pushed for a grant for a troubled cannabis company that’s the subject of a federal investigation.

But the complaint retired nurse Linda Ramsey filed with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Division on Tuesday alleges that DeSpain broke federal ethics laws by failing to disclose required information about her investments. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires members of Congress and candidates to file reports detailing their personal finances, so voters and watchdogs can see whether personal financial interests conflict with job responsibilities.

“By concealing assets on her personal financial disclosure and violating House Ethics guidelines, Monique DeSpain is avoiding basic financial transparency just as she has avoided telling voters what party she is with and how she would vote in Congress,” Ramsey said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle. “The people of Oregon deserve to know where DeSpain’s financial interests lie to ensure she would be fully accountable to voters of Oregon’s 4th Congressional District. Her failure to disclose this information warrants an ethics investigation.”

The complaint specifically faulted DeSpain for not disclosing assets in several investment accounts.

DeSpain filed two personal financial disclosure reports this year, one on March 10 and one on May 2. The forms are largely identical and show that her main source of income is a six-figure annual salary from the law firm founded by state Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem. She earned either $100,918 or $105,500 working for him in 2023, depending on which report is accurate.

She also reported receiving at least $30,000 and less than $100,000 last year in rent from two rental properties she owns in Clark County, Washington. She rents one for $2,300 and one for $2,425 monthly.

DeSpain has between $45,000 and $151,000 split between four checking and savings accounts, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonds, retirement accounts and annuities, according to her May financial disclosure.

Five of her investment accounts, totaling between $82,005 and $230,000, are mentioned in the complaint. House Ethics rules require candidates to list any underlying assets in retirement funds that are valued at more than $1,000 or generate more than $200, but DeSpain did not list any, something the complaint said she should have done.

“Ms. DeSpain’s blatant failure to adhere to the requirements of the act has the effect of completely denying Oregon voters the opportunity to discern whether she has any conflicts of interest that may prevent her from safeguarding their interests,” the complaint says. “For example, the public has no way of knowing whether some of the assets that Ms. DeSpain listed on her Schedule A contain underlying investments in companies that could prevent Ms. DeSpain from conducting her official duties (e.g., taking votes and drafting legislation) in an impartial and detached manner. Further, Ms. DeSpain’s apparent inability to adhere to the law and the committee’s simple instructions (not once, but twice) is both disappointing and concerning, given that she is seeking such a venerated and influential position in the United States government.”

DeSpain said in a statement that she followed all rules in submitting her financial disclosures, and that she confirmed with the House Ethics Committee that she merely needed to move some information from one section of the form to another.

“Make no mistake – the only candidate who is deceiving voters is Val Hoyle,” DeSpain said in a statement. “I filed the appropriate filings on time, fully, transparently, and in good faith with the House Ethics Committee. I have confirmed with House Ethics that no information is missing, and some data in Schedule A of my filing needs to be copied and pasted into Schedule C. This stunt is a desperate ploy by corrupt career politician Val Hoyle to distract voters from the fact that she is under a real federal investigation for a pay-to-play scheme with La Mota and potentially others. This attack on me is nothing more than an admission of guilt by Val Hoyle regarding her own investigation – and that voters can tell she’s lying.”

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump once again declined to submit a statement to Oregon’s state-issued voters’ pamphlet, skipping an opportunity to make his case to the state’s 3 million voters.

Candidates aren’t required to submit voters’ pamphlet statements, and Trump will still appear on all Oregon ballots. But most candidates participate in the pamphlet, which is mailed to all Oregon households and is a cheap – presidential candidates pay the top fee of $3,500 – way to share a campaign’s message with all voters.

The state-issued voters’ pamphlet, which will be mailed to voters by mid-October, will feature four presidential candidates: Democrat Kamala Harris, Libertarian Chase Oliver, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who withdrew from contention in several swing states but will still appear on the Oregon ballot as the We The People party’s nominee. Trump, Progressive nominee Cornel West and Constitution Party nominee Randall Terry will appear on the ballot but did not submit statements.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, is the only vice presidential candidate who submitted a voters’ pamphlet statement.

The statements are no more than 325 words and include a candidate’s occupation, job background, educational background and prior government experience, followed by space for candidates’ pitches and endorsements. It’s a class C felony to lie about educational or professional backgrounds, though candidates aren’t bound by the truth in other parts of the statement. A 2017 effort to criminalize lying in the statement failed because of concerns about free speech.

Prior to Trump, who also skipped the primary voters’ pamphlet, only three major party presidential candidates have declined to provide statements for the voters’ pamphlet since 2012. John Kasich, Rick Santorum and Tulsi Gabbard didn’t provide statements for primary campaigns.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.

A national analysis group that correctly predicted the Oregon Legislature’s partisan split after the 2022 elections is now forecasting solid Democratic majorities.

CNalysis, the country’s only elections forecasting group that forecasts legislative elections, is predicting a 39-21 Democratic majority in the state House and an 18-11 split in the state Senate.

Those margins would give Democratic leaders breathing room as they try to negotiate a new transportation funding package during the 2025 session, as any attempts to create new taxes or raise existing ones requires a supermajority of 18 votes in the Senate and 36 in the House. Democrats now hold 17 Senate seats and 35 in the House.

Republicans conceded months ago that their chances of taking the majority in the Senate are basically nil, simply because of which seats are up for grabs. Senators serve staggered four-year terms, and the most competitive districts have elections in midterm years. They’re focused on defending two districts now held by Republicans and possibly flipping a Democratic seat in east Multnomah County.

In the House, where all 60 seats are up for election, Democrats and Republicans are fighting harder over control. Here’s a look at the handful of competitive legislative elections, and what CNalysis forecasted:

Senate

The forecasting group only considers two of the state’s Senate races to be competitive: the 5th District along the central coast and the 25th District in east Multnomah County. Both feature incumbent senators running for reelection.

Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, in the 5th District is one of only three Republican Senate incumbents allowed to run for reelection after most of his caucus skipped floor sessions for six weeks in 2023 and were disqualified from serving subsequent terms. The central coast has slightly favored Republicans in recent elections – Donald Trump won the district by about 3 points in 2016 and 2020, and Republican gubernatorial nominee Christine Drazan won it by almost 7 in 2022.

But voters in half of Anderson’s district also elected a moderate Democrat, David Gomberg of Otis, to represent them in the state House. The forecast rates the district as a tossup between Anderson and Democratic challenger Jo Beaudreau, a Florence city councilor.

The forecast gave much better odds to Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, in his own reelection battle in the 25th District. Gorsek won by almost 4 points in his 2020 race and the district boundaries haven’t changed much after redistricting in 2021. But Republicans see hope in 2022 results: Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek won the district by just one-tenth of a point. Still, the forecast says it’s “very likely” Gorsek will prevail over Republican challenger Raymond Love.

Oregon politicos are also paying close attention to central Oregon’s 27th Senate District, where former Senate Republican leader Tim Knopp is disqualified from running again and Bend City Councilor Anthony Broadman is trying to give Bend an entirely Democratic slate of legislators. He’ll face Redmond School Board chair Michael Summers in November.

Bend and Redmond have shifted to the left in recent years, and Kotek won the district by more than 8 points in 2022. The national forecast rated the district solidly Democratic.

House

There are no tossups in the House model, and the four closest predicted races were forecasted to tilt toward Democrats. Those all have Republican incumbents – the Salem-based 21st House District represented by Rep. Kevin Mannix, the Woodburn-based 22nd District represented by Rep. Tracy Cramer, the 32nd District along the northwest coast represented by Rep. Cyrus Javadi and the 52nd District in the Columbia River Gorge represented by House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich.

CNalysis incorrectly predicted Mannix’s race in 2022, though its overall forecast remained correct because it also underestimated Democrat Emerson Levy in the Bend-based 53rd District. Mannix, an attorney and architect of many of Oregon’s tough-on-crime laws from the 1990s, is well-known in Salem, and Democrats hope this year to unseat him by running a well-known Salem city councilor, Virginia Stapleton.

Cramer, R-Gervais, flipped a Democratic-held seat that includes farming communities in north Marion County that voted for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 then endorsed Drazan’s Republican bid for governor in 2022. Cramer will face Democrat Lesly Munoz, a consultant for the Oregon Education Association.

Javadi, R-Tillamook, expected a rematch with Democrat Logan Laity, a small business marketer who he beat two years ago by 2.5 percentage points and fewer than 850 votes in the coastal 32nd District. But Laity withdrew this summer because of a work relocation and Javadi will instead face Astoria City Councilor Andy Davis. The district went for Biden in 2020 and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by one-fifth of a point, but Drazan won it by nearly 3 points in 2022.

Helfrich will face drug and alcohol prevention specialist Nick Walden Poublon in the 52nd District, which Helfrich won by 5 points in 2022. The district also voted for Drazan, though it supported Democrats for president in 2016 and 2020.

Other swing districts held by Democrats are rated as “likely Democratic” in the forecast, including:

-The 7th District in Lane County, where Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield, will face business development manager Cory Burket;

-The 40th District in Clackamas County where Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone will face Michael Newgard, an Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot.

– The 48th District in Clackamas and Multnomah counties, where Rep. Hoa Nguyen, D-Portland, will face business owner John Masterman.

– The 49th District in Multnomah County where Rep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, faces Republican Terry Tipsord, owner of a business development company.

– The 50th District in east Multnomah County where Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, is up against Republican Paul Drechsler, who owns a landscape supply business.

– And the 53rd District in central Oregon, where Levy is defending her seat against Redmond School Board member Keri Lopez.

One district that could be considered competitive based on voter registration, the 31st District northwest of Portland, voted for Republicans by nearly 20 points in 2022. The forecast rates it as likely Republican, with GOP real estate agent Darcey Edwards favored to win over Democratic tax consultant Jordan Gutierrez.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.

Three Oregon Republicans running to control the state’s elections have all stoked false claims of voter fraud and indicated they want to end Oregon’s decades-long tradition of running elections by mail.

State Sen. Dennis Linthicum, Beaverton real estate broker Brent Barker and Salem business analyst Tim McCloud are vying for their party’s nomination for secretary of state, an open position since appointed Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade chose not to seek a full term. It’s the only statewide office Republicans have won this century: Dennis Richardson was elected in 2016 and served until his death in 2019.

Barker participated in an interview. McCloud answered a questionnaire sent to all candidates but didn’t respond to interview requests. Linthicum did neither.

Brent Barker

Barker placed fourth in the seven-way nonpartisan primary for commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries in 2022 and was the first Republican to enter the race for secretary of state this year. His platform includes clearing the state’s voter rolls and forcing all voters to register anew to vote.

“It’s best if we just start from zero and clean it up, much less expensive, and start over again,” he said.

Barker also wants to eliminate mail elections and require most voters to cast their ballots in person, with exceptions for military voters and “aged populations.” He said he wanted to make Election Day a state holiday, giving government employees the day off and giving private employers tax credits if they gave their employees the day off. The secretary of state lacks the power to make any of those changes without actions by the Legislature or voters.

He said he wanted to increase post-election audits, though county clerks and the secretary of state already conduct routine audits of equipment and ballots. Barker couldn’t say what would be different under his command.

“I believe that these clerks that you’re alluding to, with all good intent, believe that they have the best information but there’s a whole group of Oregonians that do not believe that their voice is being heard and more importantly, they feel that like their their voice is being disenfranchised,” he said.

He has not talked with county clerks about how they run elections or toured election offices, though he said he would consider doing so. Barker said he supports new campaign finance limits passed by the Legislature this year and voted for Measure 113, the anti-walkout constitutional amendment that cost Linthicum and nine other senators their jobs.

When it comes to agencies and state programs to audit, Barker said he’ll look first at agencies that appear to be noncompliant with the Legislature’s wishes.

“The Legislature sets standards,” he said. “You just have to make sure the Legislature’s wishes are being fulfilled, regardless of the department. Those wishes must be fulfilled.”

Dennis Linthicum

Linthicum, 68, is one of 10 Republican senators barred from running for another term because he participated in a six-week quorum-denying walkout to protest bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun control. He recruited his wife, Diane, to run in his stead in the southern Oregon Senate district this year.

During his two terms in the Senate, Linthicum has consistently been one of the furthest-right members of the Republican caucus. He has introduced multiple unsuccessful bills to ban abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, prohibit businesses or the government from requiring employees to receive COVID vaccines and limit schools’ abilities to require students receive routine childhood immunizations.

Linthicum has been a plaintiff in several unsuccessful state and federal lawsuits challenging how the state handled the COVID pandemic and elections. A federal judge tossed one of those lawsuits last summer, saying that “generalized grievances” from Linthicum and other Republicans didn’t give them standing to sue in a case that sought to end Oregon’s vote-by-mail system and electronic tabulation of ballots.

In a February 2023 constituent newsletter, Linthicum described Oregon’s vote-by-mail system as “the gold-standard for election engineering” and accused Democrats of ramping up a “progressive freeway to unparalleled voter fraud” by passing laws meant to expand voter access, including allowing late-arriving ballots to be counted if they’re postmarked by Election Day and expanding online voter registration to people without state-issued IDs.

In a January newsletter, he also claimed that “people, not necessarily citizens, can vote using a centralized non-transparent black box using mail-in ballots with nothing but a signature to validate the authenticity of the vote.” In fact, all voters must attest to being a citizen to register to vote.

His platform for secretary of state includes advocating to end mail voting and require voters to vote in person at local precincts while presenting a photo ID. He voted against the campaign finance limit law passed this year that he would have to implement as secretary of state.

Most of the more than $200,000 Linthicum has raised during this election came in the form of legal expenses for his challenge to his disqualification as senator, which were covered by a fundraising committee to the tune of more than $165,000.

Tim McCloud

McCloud ran for governor in 2022, placing 10th in a Republican primary with 19 candidates. For the secretary of state’s race, he has not reported raising or spending any money, doesn’t have a campaign website and didn’t submit a statement for the state-issued voters’ pamphlet.

In response to a questionnaire sent to all candidates, he said his experience in business, as well as his four years serving on the Albany Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Commission and year on the Linn County Compensation Board give him the experience to lead the Secretary of State’s Office. He added that he has no ties to foreign or special interests and that would help him avoid conflicts of interest.

He said he would restore trust in the agency by addressing all outstanding complaints related to elections and “review(ing) the entire voter system for potential vulnerabilities.” McCloud blamed former secretaries of state Shemia Fagan and Kate Brown for having “significant ethical concerns,” though he didn’t elaborate on his complaints against Brown, who went on to serve as governor from 2015 to 2023.

McCloud said he intended to end the office’s use of artificial intelligence to help flag threats and election misinformation posted online. He also said he wanted to open in-person voting centers, which he described as a common-sense measure to secure the election process.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Attorneys representing the Oregon voters who are suing to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot insisted in court documents filed this week that they don’t need to prove they’d be harmed by Trump running for election.

The Oregon Supreme Court last week asked the voters, who are represented by two Portland attorneys and the national advocacy group Free Speech for People, to file an additional brief explaining whether they had a right to sue in the case and whether Oregon law allows Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade to determine whether a presidential candidate is qualified to serve. With final documents filed late Tuesday, the court can issue its decision on the case at any time.

Oregon is one front in a multistate effort to remove Trump from the ballot. Critics charge that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and support for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol constituted an insurrection and made him ineligible under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment bars candidates who previously took an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

The Democratic secretary of state in Maine and the Colorado Supreme Court agreed, ruling that Trump should be removed from ballots in those states. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering the Colorado ruling.

Griffin-Valade and the Oregon Department of Justice have taken the stance that she lacks the authority to judge whether presidential candidates are qualified because voters don’t actually pick a nominee during the primary – they direct delegates to a national convention how to vote. The Oregon Republican Party requires all delegates to support the winner of the state’s primary.

Trump intervened in the Oregon case with a 162-page brief in December, arguing that neither Griffin-Valade nor state courts can decide who is qualified to be president and objecting to claims that he engaged in insurrection. Further, Trump argued, the Oregon voters lacked standing, or a right to sue, because none of them is a Republican presidential candidate or voter who would be prevented from voting for a preferred candidate because of Trump’s presence on the ballot.

“They assert no interest in this case other than the generalized interest in elections shared by all Oregon citizens,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “That is not sufficient to invoke this court’s mandamus jurisdiction. Across the nation and across several presidential elections, many challenges to candidates’ eligibility have failed for lack of standing. This one does too.”

In response, attorneys representing the Oregon voters wrote in a brief filed Tuesday that the Oregon Supreme Court has broad power in matters of extreme public importance and urgency. The court filing noted that Trump’s primary opponents oppose efforts to remove him from the ballot, speculating that they don’t want to alienate his supporters.

“That absence of plaintiffs or relators with special motivation (and financial resources) to seek enforcement of the 14th Amendment, Section 3, against a particular state or federal candidate means that only ordinary voters can protect democracy by seeking such enforcement when officials do not act,” the filing said. “Requiring those ordinary voters to have heightened beneficial interest in democracy would establish an unbalanced system, where the most profound and universal fundamental rights cannot be enforced through mandamus to any court, because the benefits will flow widely and not narrowly to the relators.”

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.