I agree this is a big deal. That's why the Real Diehl is chiming in. ๐
Oregon voters have been told for years that concerns about vote-by-mail are unfounded.
Now Secretary of State Tobias Read wants more official drop boxes because he does not trust the Postal Service to get ballots from voters to county election officials on time.
That is a chain-of-custody issue.
Once a ballot leaves the voterโs hands, who has it, how it is transported, and when election officials receive it all matter.
That is precisely the point election-integrity advocates have been making.
The issue is not that every ballot traveling through the mail is compromised.
The issue is whether Oregonโs election system should minimize the number of uncontrolled links between the voter and the official responsible for counting that ballot.
Readโs solution - more secure, election-controlled drop boxes - implicitly concedes that the chain matters, and that there are vulnerabilities and weaknesses in that chain.
Defenders will say this is only happening because of Trump.
That answer gives the game away.
If Oregonโs elections can be thrown into doubt by decisions in Washington, D.C., then a core part of our voting system has been handed to the federal government.
A state that mails every ballot has chosen to make the U.S. Postal Service a link in the chain of custody.
You cannot outsource that link and then pretend the chain is Oregonโs alone.
Oregon should have an honest conversation about the vulnerabilities of vote-by-mail instead of dismissing anyone who raises them.
This is a big deal: we are setting up more drop boxes and giving Oregonians a better tool to track their ballots. This will help voters make sure their ballots get counted, especially w/ everything thatโs going on w/ the federal govt. & USPS. More:
bit.ly/4cIpj51 #orpol