Actively Oppose HB 2551 and HB 2583

HB 2551 -- prohibits opening of ballot envelopes before 8:30 am on Election Day. So the careful work of examining ballots and contacting voters about possible errors before the election would have to be compressed into Election day itself. One of the issues raised by the county clerks is cost and space. During this low turnout School Board election this might not be an issue but during the General Election last fall, they were running out of space to process ballots and the holding areas where ballots were kept between one stage of processing and the next became full. But if all the work had to be done on Election day there would have to be extra workers hired and trained for the crunch time, extra space might have to be rented to accommodate the overflow and there would be security issues with transporting ballots between the county elections office and another temporary location. The bill also prohibits ballot drop sites other than official ones -- so groups like Moveon.org, DFO or the Dems would be prohibited from collecting ballots at an unofficial site. I think this is example of a solution in search of a problem -- and example of right wing paranoia about "security" -- because the proposed solution would create more problems than the present situation. The county clerks don't like it because it would disrupt their existing orderly process for handling ballots as they come in. It keeps them from helping voters resolve problems as early in the election cycle as possible. This bill has been given 8 public hearings (don't ask me why because it is certainly not on its merits). It has not been voted on in committee or sent to the floor of the house. We want it to be bottled up in committee permanently. There is an attachment of testimony by Jan Coleman, Yamhill County Clerk,that was presented to the House Committee on Elections and Rules on behalf of the Oregon Association of County Clerks The County Clerks are strongly opposed to this bill.

HB 2583 -- requires proof of citizenship when first registering to vote in Oregon. It is generally viewed as an anti-immigrant measure but I think it would affect a wide swath of Oregonians. Under the federal "motor voter" law, folks can register to vote when they turn in their out of state licenses at the DMV. If this passes they will have to bring in a birth certificate, or passport or naturalization papers. I was talking with Sara of truthinvoting.org in Eugene about this one: she works in the field of gerontology and finds that a lot of older folks don't have birth certificates (born at home before birith certificates were required, courthouse fires destroyed records, etc) -- only 10% of Americans have passports. If you are born outside Oregon it can be tricky to obtain a copy of a birth certificate -- first you have to figure out which jurisdiction applies, where the records are stored (sometimes different agencies have custody depending on date of birth), what the fees are, send them a check and wait for the certificate to be mailed to you. Dave was born in California and I in Ohio -- the rules were different in the two states. (Heaven forbid that you were born overseas while your parent(s) were in the military, serving as missionaries, or just traveling around the world). I suspect that recently naturalized citizens are more likely to have their citizenship proof at hand than most native born Americans. This bill has been given 7 public hearings. It has not been voted out of committee and has not been sent to the floor for a vote. Kill this bill.