Primary elections in Oregon will proceed as planned, on May 19, 2020. While several states like Georgia, Ohio, and Kentucky, have recently announced they are moving their primary elections back over COVID-19 concerns.
“Because Oregon votes by mail we do not have to be concerned about social distancing issues at polling places that so many other states are struggling with,” Oregon Secretary of State Bev Clarno’s office said by email.
How Oregon Ballots will be Counted
Speaking to AP, the president of Oregon’s Association of County Clerks, said that to keep proper social-distancing protocol, fewer ballot counters will be able allowed a room, also, gloves will be given to them to handle the ballots, but no masks will be provided.
How Vote-By-Mail Works
Oregon established the vote-by-mail system as the standard mechanism for voting since 1998, making it the first state in the US to exclusively conduct voting via mail.
In this system, voters do not go out to vote physically in a polling unit or via an electronic system. Registered voters in the state, (more than 2 million) receive a ballot via the US postal service. After voting, the ballots are dropped off via mail at any of the secured drop sites. Each ballot envelope has a unique barcode to ensure that each voter can only vote once After that the voter signature is verified against the one in the voter registration database.
If they match, the ballot goes through else the ballot is rejected and the voter notified of the issue otherwise they are notified that their vote has been counted.
Is Vote-By-Mail the Future?
Vote-by-mail is becoming popular and could be the end of faulty machines and long queues at polling sites. Former Oregon Secretary of State Phil Keisling (democrat) believes the physical polling stations “have become the single biggest place for voter suppression devices in American politics,” and he made this clear in an interview with NBC. Dennis Richard (Republican) and current secretary of the state shares the same sentiments and believes it is more secure. “It is well embraced. You can’t hack paper.”
While it is more convenient, saves a lot of money and leads to higher voter turnout as is evident from data on Washington, Oregon and Colorado – the three other states that use the system, voter fraud stands as the major pushback against the vote-by-mail system.
