A couple days after he was prevented from presenting a resolution to the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners calling for an independent audit of the local election system, Commissioner Mark Shull pushed for statewide action.
Shull sent a letter to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office Wednesday, Oct. 30 asking for an independent audit of voter rolls that would include “an assessment of processes and procedures related to voter registration and the maintenance and accuracy of voter rolls in Oregon, and a National Institute of Standards and Technology review of election cybersecurity procedures” immediately after the election Nov. 5.
The issue of election integrity came up at a commissioners meeting Thursday, Oct. 24, when volunteers from the group United Sovereign Americans — which has filed election lawsuits in nine states — called for an election audit during public testimony. The group’s claims about massive errors in the state’s election system have not been substantiated. Its founders are aligned with former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly and erroneously claimed he did not lose the 2020 presidential election.
On Oct. 28, Clackamas County Chair Tootie Smith called a recess of the board of commissioners until Nov. 7 to cool tensions surrounding the issue. This prevented Shull from presenting the election audit resolution prior to the election. Shull is in the midst of a tight race for reelection against Lake Oswego resident Melissa Fireside.
“The people of Oregon, as well as the people across the Nation, have concerns regarding election integrity. This is a nonpartisan issue,” Shull wrote. “The recent discovery of problems related to Motor Voter registrations has further caused concern and illuminated the need for a close examination of election processes in general through an independent audit process.”
In the letter, Shull referenced a recent discovery that more than 1,500 people were accidentally registered to vote through the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles process for voter registration when citizens receive an issuance or renewal of their driver’s license. This resulted in about 10 illegitimate votes. Earlier this month, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade and Gov. Tina Kotek called for an independent audit of the state’s motor voter registration system, but the audit Shull seeks would be a more holistic examination of the state’s voting system.
“Thanks to the swift action of elections officials, I have full confidence that these new errors will not impact the 2024 election,” said Secretary Griffin-Valade in a press release released earlier this month. “The DMV’s After Action Report raises serious concerns about this important part of our voter registration system. The first step in restoring the public’s trust in Motor Voter is a transparent review by a neutral third party operating under strict government auditing standards.”
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office responded to Shull via email that Griffin-Valade would review the letter as soon as possible.
“We appreciate and share your interest in the integrity of Oregon’s elections,” the office’s email response reads.
Shull also claimed in a Facebook post that the co-chair of a nonpartisan election integrity group (it was formerly a committee within the Clackamas County Republican Party) found 3,850 county residents who had been simultaneously registered to vote in other states for at least four years; Shull surmised the number of voters illegally registered to vote in the state is far greater than 1,500. Carpenter Media Group asked Shull and chairs of the election integrity group for evidence regarding the 3,850 figure. In response, Shull issued a statement saying the United Sovereign Americans presented the dual registration figures to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office and said to direct questions regarding figures to the state.
The Oregon Secretary of State office said that a voter could theoretically be registered to vote in multiple states (doing so is not a crime) but that information is supposed to get flagged and updated. Oregon is part of an information sharing consortium with many other states for updating registration and voter eligibility. It is illegal for someone to vote in multiple states.
Shull and fellow Commissioner Ben West expressed support for an independent audit at the Oct. 24 meeting while none of the commissioners pushed back against claims of voter fraud. West also said at the meeting that he asked Clackamas County Clerk Catherine McMullen to greenlight a third-party election audit, but the conversation did not go anywhere.
Following news coverage of the meeting and an opinion piece castigating the commissioners penned by local mayors, Smith announced the recess.
“We need to lower the temperature of the rhetoric occurring right now about how the national, state, and county elections are managed. I am confident in the integrity of our County’s elections process and look forward to a productive post-election season,” Smith wrote.
Leave