Brad Avakian.2012

Brad Avakian says that, if elected to the secretary of state's office, he'll work to institute same-day voter registration.

(Staff/2012)

Stephen Trout

As Oregon's former state elections director under Kate Brown, I feel a responsibility to raise a warning flag regarding this year's election for secretary of state. Brad Avakian's stated priorities either show a significant lack of understanding of the job he seeks, or worse, he wants to fundamentally change Oregon's voting processes.

Avakian's top election priority is to implement same-day voter registration in Oregon. While this is a standard policy objective of Democrats throughout the country, it absolutely cannot work in a vote-by-mail state.

Kate Brown realized that same-day registration would not work with Oregon's vote-by-mail system, so she and I worked on other ways to improve voter registration, such as online registration and automatic registration.

If Avakian doesn't understand that same-day registration cannot work in Oregon, that's scary. What is even scarier is if he does understand and, if elected, is actually going to attempt to do away with vote-by-mail.

In order for same-day voter registration to work, there has to be a physical location where voters can register, obtain a ballot, mark and cast the ballot. There also must be an active internet connection to ensure the voter hasn't already submitted a ballot. This all must take place in the same location at the same time -- that's called a "polling place."

We got rid of polling places a generation ago.

So, by his own words, is Avakian trying to undo vote-by-mail and return us to polling places?

Avakian's second stated election priority is to implement civics education in schools. Again, this is a good soundbite. But does he really not know that the Oregon secretary of state's office already has a civics toolkit for this very purpose? The state elections division website (sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/toolkit.aspx) has a civics curriculum available to every citizen -- adult or child -- that was created in partnership with Oregon educators. It covers everything from the history of voting in Oregon to what a voter needs to know before registering.

Providing these tools is something the office already does. However, dictating actual curricula falls within the purview of the Department of Education and local school boards. It is not within the authority of the secretary of state.

Oregon elections are some of the best in the country. County election officials are detail-oriented professionals, and there is no risk of Oregon elections being "hacked" or "rigged."

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What Oregon needs in our next secretary of state is someone who will conduct the affairs of the office in a nonpartisan way with integrity and transparency, while also maintaining neutrality so that members of all political parties have confidence in the election results -- even when the environment surrounding an election is as politically charged as this one.

Stephen Trout is a former Oregon state elections director.