Voting by mail has come under fire again. Republicans in Congress have proposed a bill that would make it more difficult, while President Donald Trump has said that he may attempt to limit or even end it through an executive order before the midterms.
As Oregon’s top elections official, I feel a special responsibility to speak up on behalf of the system, as my state has run all its elections through the mail for more than a quarter century now.
This is not a partisan matter. Under mail-in voting, Oregon has elected Democrats, Republicans and independents, and voters from across the political spectrum love it.
When a bill in was introduced in the state Legislature to end voting by mail, so many Oregonians submitted public comments that they temporarily broke the Legislature’s website. More than 85% of those comments were in favor of keeping it.
It’s not hard to understand why it’s so popular. Voting by mail is safe, fair and accurate. Most of all, it’s convenient.
When Oregonians receive their paper ballot in the mail, they can mark their votes at a time that works for them, in their own home. They can deposit their completed ballot in a mailbox or into a secure drop box, where it is taken to their county clerk’s office, maintaining a clear chain of custody.
We verify the voter’s identity for each ballot through forensic signature matching, and bipartisan elections boards watch the process to ensure each voter’s intent is accurately recorded. Our paper ballots mean we have an auditable record of all votes cast. Voter fraud is essentially nonexistent, and, in the rare instance where it’s been attempted, it was caught and has never changed the outcome of an election.
Set that all aside for a moment. Suppose that we tried to end voting by mail before the midterm elections, which are 14 months away. That may sound like a long time to you, but it’s not to an elections administrator.
We’ve been running vote-by-mail elections for decades now, so we’d have to change almost every part of our system. That would require time and resources we don’t have. Setting up in-person, ADA-compliant polling places here would require us to find those locations in the first place, hire more staff, buy new voting machines, pay for extra security at each location, and do a significant amount of new training for all employees. We’d have to redraw all of our precinct lines, and there’s the added expense of public outreach to Oregonians so they know how to vote.
At a time when our state and county governments are already struggling to fund law enforcement, roads, schools and other needs because of federal cuts, the president is considering adding another major expense for Oregon taxpayers, asking us to waste time and money to create a voting system we don’t want or need.
Voting by mail means Oregonians participate in democracy on our own terms, and we take full advantage of it. Last fall, more than 75% of Oregonians cast a ballot, the third highest rate in the country and a full 10 percentage points higher than the national average. If Congress and the president want to make our elections more secure, they should expand voting by mail. If Congress and the president want to make our elections more secure and more fair, they should be looking for ways to expand voting by mail, not shutting it down. In the end, though, it is Oregon’s decision. The Constitution is clear that state and local governments run elections. When the federal government is involved, it is through Congress, not an executive order signed at the president’s whim. Our state leaders are prepared to challenge any illegal action against our rights. We will work with other states to push back on any attempt to make it harder and more expensive for Americans to vote. We encourage every American who wants to protect our democracy to join us.
Tobias Read
Tobias Read is the Oregon Secretary of State. He previously served as state treasurer and a member of the state House of Representatives. 
