How Oregon Works with US Postal Service to Minimize VBM Fraud

John Kauffman is the Elections Clerk for Multnomah County in Oregon. The following information provided by Mr. Kauffman addresses a question posed by Chuck Herrin:

From an email 4-1-2005

My question to John Kauffman:
Could you tell me if and how you work with the post office? This concern about VBM was raised by someone who has a national website: “They (Oregon) sound like they are doing the right thing, and have multiple controls, but at least one person other than the voter has unrestricted, unmonitored physical access to the ballots (the mailman). Unrestricted, unmonitored physical access is something that's very difficult to design compensating controls for - period.”

I have already told him about signature verification and all the checks and balances with people being able to call if they don’t receive their ballot; that they can drop it off at a drop site, etc. Can you tell me any more that would apply to this?

John's reply:

Very interesting question! We have worked very closely with the Portland Post Office over the past 20+ years to coordinate the delivery and return of vote by mail ballots. As you can imagine, the Post Office is very much aware that the success of Vote-By-Mail reflects directly on their operations. We meet with the Postmaster prior to every major election involving all counties in our area and all departments within the Post Office affected by the mailing of ballots.

First, a general observation: the concern raised by the individual in your national group applies in every State with absentee voting. Vote-by-mail is not the only method of voting which relies on the Postal Service!

We do have some additional procedures which may help alleviate the concern. If a voter does not receive a ballot, he/she will call us and we can arrange to deliver or allow for picking up a replacement ballot. If we detect a pattern, we will immediately notify our contacts at the Post Office. We can identify the carrier route and the individual mail carrier. Any alleged violation of election law will be turned over to the Secretary of State for investigation and eventual prosecution. Voters can contact us to see if we have received their ballot. If not, again, we can issue replacement ballots. And if there is a pattern, we can follow through as above.

If voters have concerns about their mail carriers, ballots do not need to be mailed. We have ballot drop boxes at the Multnomah County Central Library and each of the sixteen branch libraries, all available to voters during the regular business hours of the libraries (evenings and weekends.) We also have five 24-hour ballot drop boxes, a voter express booth at Pioneer Courthouse Square and a mail slot in the door to our office. These drop boxes are geographically located throughout the county.

We have never had problems with mail carriers, to my knowledge. Another major difference between VBM and absentee voting is that in other states the polling places are also open. The election administrators have to balance operations and procedures for two different operations at once. In Oregon, everything focuses on VBM which reduces the potential for error on our part.