Secretary of State Tobias Read: Vote early, use drop box

Presenter: Oregon’s secretary of state shared two public service announcements during his appearance with Eugene/Springfield-area legislators April 9: Vote as early as you can, and bring your completed and signed ballot to a drop-off box. Tobias Reed:

Tobias Read (Oregon, secretary of state): Thanks everyone for being here tonight. I’m really looking forward to your questions about Oregon’s elections and our democracy. My role as secretary of state really is to serve all the people of Oregon and our office sits at the heart of the relationship between people in Oregon and our government.

And of course that does include running safe, accurate, and fair elections, something we have done in Oregon for a very long time, and something we will continue to do, no matter what the president might say.

We are obviously in some difficult times right now when it comes to elections issues, and the attacks from the president, the federal administration really are relentless. So in that sense, it’s worth just a quick step back to recount some of the not-so-highlights of this first year of the administration.

They started by taking away funding and programs for election security—the things that our county clerks desperately need to protect against cyberthreats and foreign interference. Just as two examples, the executive order that the president offered about a year ago would also have, it sought to let the president decide how elections are run and which ballots would get counted.

But we sued against that elections-related executive order, and we won and that didn’t go into effect. 

On the other hand, the president and the U.S. Department of Justice sued me because I was not willing to hand over your private data—your partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers and dates of birth.

And going forward, even in the present, they are continuing to try to nationalize our elections, to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice to prove these nonexistent, unsupported election conspiracy theories. You can just look at Maricopa County, Arizona, Fulton County, Georgia as examples of that.

And they’re pushing for legislation and policies that would make it harder and more expensive to vote, that would really suppress the rights of American voters. I’m talking of course about the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act and the SAVE America Act and the MEGA (Make Elections Great Again) Act.

All of this, I think, adds up to an effort to push the narrative that voter fraud and noncitizen voting is an issue and that it’s widespread. I’m here to tell you tonight it is not. And these policies would only make it harder. They would only put barriers up to eligible American citizens voting.

And then as recently as last week, you probably followed the news too, the president issued another executive order attacking vote-by-mail, because I think that ultimately he’s afraid, he is scared about how unpopular his positions and policies and he is, and voting by mail makes it more convenient for eligible people to hold him accountable. That’s what elections are about, after all. 

So we’re suing against that executive order too.

And what I want to be really clear for all of you about is that our vote by mail system is safe and secure. We’ve already got a secure way of tying each ballot back to an eligible voter. And really by threatening access to federal funding with this executive order, the president is holding Oregonians hostage over politics. And it’s just another tactic out of his long-running and consistent playbook to try to rig our elections.

But the good news (and I suspect everyone who is here already knows this): The Constitution is not on his side. I am not a lawyer, but you don’t have to be a lawyer. Article I, Section 4 says it very clearly: Presidents do not run elections, states do.

And we in Oregon are going to defend that authority every single time because we’re preparing for every possible disruption that we can imagine. Whether that’s the FBI or ICE interference, that’s cuts to Postal Service (which is also an issue). And we’re using every tool in our toolbox to push back against that kind of federal overreach.

We’ve won the executive order lawsuit from a year ago with the attorney general in Washington State. The judge ruled from the bench when it came to their effort to seize the voting data. They’re appealing that case, but we feel really strongly about the argument that we made and trust that the courts are going to continue to uphold the Constitution and your right to privacy.

And we had one really simple message to the president when he issued this latest unconstitutional executive order. We said: ‘We’ll see you in court.’ 

We are working closely with the unsung heroes of our democracy all across the state, county clerks and executive orders. Tommy Gong in Lane County is one of those heroes and we’re making sure that they have the tools and the resources they need to confront any one of these disruptions. They’re excellent at this. They innovate and adapt with duct tape and determination, if nothing else. 

And I want you to know, if Congress continues to try to strip away your rights, your delegation here in Lane County, your congressional delegation, we are all ready to push back because our oath is not to the politics of Washington D.C., it’s to you. That is how we defend democracy. It’s how we protect your voice.

And I want to finish with two very important and consequential public service announcements here. We got two big elections coming up this year, maybe more in Lane County, but at least two in the primary, that’s just about six weeks away and the general election in November.

So I want all of you please to make your plan about how you are going to vote now, and then share that with your friends and neighbors. The key is that you’ve got to get your ballot back as soon as you’re ready to make your choices. And if you can use an official county drop box, that means you don’t have to rely on the Postal Service and the cuts that they are considering.

If you’re going to use the mail, please try to do that at least a week before election day. If you need to mail closer to Election Day than that week, please go to the post office, go to the counter and ask the person there to apply a hand postmark. That maximizes the chance that we will get it in time and be able to count it.

So, really tough times amongst elections. But, we should be proud of the fact that we have safe, accurate, fair elections in Oregon. We are amongst the leaders in the country. When it comes to voter turnout, that’s a good thing because we are stronger and more resilient when more people participate.

And you have my commitment that I will use every tool at my disposal to make sure that Oregonians continue to be able to vote, have their voices heard, and hold politicians and government accountable with all that. 

Presenter: He was asked to explain how Oregon is responding to Trump administration threats to send ICE agents to voting locations, and to threats to the vote-by-mail system. Secretary of State Tobias Reed:

Tobias Read (Oregon, secretary of state): I mean, I think the first thing to remember is that we have safe, accurate, fair elections in Oregon. We always will, and all of these efforts really depend on the false narrative that we don’t.

So people should be confident in that, should talk to our friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, people in the grocery store line about how this works.

Remember, we use paper ballots in Oregon, something the president has apparently forgotten. Those ballots have barcodes on them, something the president maybe didn’t ever know. All of those ballots come back. Their signatures are verified. They are stored in secure locations.

They’re counted by election machines that are never, ever connected to the internet, machines that are publicly tested for accuracy before and after every election. The ballot is reviewed by a multipartisan team, an election board that makes sure that the voter’s intent is accurately reflected. Those ballots are also audited after the election, and if there’s any problem, they can be recounted.

The former Republican secretary of state, one of my predecessors, Dennis Richardson, said it very well: ‘You can’t hack paper ballots.’ So we are in a good position to start.

In addition to that, the Constitution’s really clear. The president can say whatever he wants, but he can’t change the Constitution, and so he does not have the authority to assert these executive powers. We proved that once when he did it the first time. We defeated him again on this effort to get voter data, and we’re going to court now about this latest executive order. So all of those things were on offense.

In addition to that, I think we are fortunate to have a congressional delegation that very well understands that SAVE America Act, the SAVE Act, all of those things that exist just to throw up barriers to eligible citizens, is what that represents. And they’re going to oppose that. So I feel confident that’s not going to pass Congress.

If it did, we’d be prepared to push back using those legal bases as well. And again, those clerks will figure out how—with our help—to deal with whatever comes up.

But Oregonians should be confident. I’m repeating myself again because it bears repeating: We run safe, accurate, fair elections here and anyone who has concerns about that should acquaint themselves with the efforts of our county clerks. They all welcome people coming and observing and watching how these things are done.

I virtually guarantee you’ll be able to walk away feeling even more confident and more prepared to confront the kind of mis- and disinformation that is plaguing us when it comes to elections.

We should not expect a disruption. The one caveat to that is that there is a case before the Supreme Court now that came out of Mississippi, which relates to the grace period that we’ve had in Oregon for a few years now.

What current law says is that a ballot has to be received in the election office by 8 p.m. on Election Night or postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days.

The question before the Supreme Court is whether that grace period is going to continue. So that’s why I talked at the beginning about if you can find your way to an official ballot drop box, as long as you make sure that your ballot is in that drop box by 8 p.m. or in the hands of the election office by 8 p.m., your ballot will be counted.

If you’re going to use the mail, try to do it early. It’s possible that the Supreme Court will decide that they are not going to to allow that grace period. I think it is exceedingly unlikely that they would make that decision in a way that would affect the May primary, but it’s possible that that could happen before November.

So best thing you can do is cast your ballot as soon as you’re ready to make your decisions and get that ballot into an official county dropbox. We, of course, will do everything we can to make sure that that is widely known if and when the Supreme Court makes the decision.

But again, it’s the beauty of our process. The ballot comes to you with three weeks before election day. You’ve got plenty of time to consult your resources, make your decisions, and get your ballot back so we can count it.

I would just encourage people to remember that, you know, democracy’s never been easy. If it were, we wouldn’t have had to fight for it. We wouldn’t be amending our Constitution time and time again to bring more people into its promise. So let’s not be the generation that decides we’re going to let our democracy diminish and retreat.

All of us have got the opportunity to strengthen it, move it forward. Each of us has spheres of influence. We can remind our fellow Oregonians how lucky we have it and how we cannot take our ability to vote and hold people accountable for granted.

Make your plan. Please share and help other people. Make sure that their votes are in and counted. And we will get through this. We are not canceling elections.

We will have safe, accurate, fair elections in Oregon, just as we always have. Tell that story, build that expectation and resilience, and we’ll get through it all. Thanks very much.

Presenter: Secretary of State Tobias Reed shares his confidence in Oregon’s vote-by-mail system, and encourages voters in the May election to respond early and to use a drop box rather than the Postal Service.