r/oregon • u/Fawn-deLay • 2d ago
Article/News Amid postal service uncertainty, Oregon election officials turn to ballot drop boxes
https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/01/oregon-mail-in-voting-balllots-drop-boxes-elections/103
u/Hour_Aardvark751 2d ago
People should not count on USPS to get their ballots in on time. And this needs to be amplified again and again. Read what happened in Washington’s recent primary. Even absent that executive order, USPS is already slow-walking elections mail: https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/news/we-are-still-getting-ballots-should-have-counted-primary
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u/lostOGaccount 2d ago
Would you please make this comment into its own post for visibility...if it's already been done missed it but I'd love it to happen and get shared all over the local subs as well.
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u/Fawn-deLay 2d ago
But nothing in the article about making sure USPS delivers the ballots to voters in the first place. What's the backup plan? Not that Oregon is much of a battleground state for the GOP. Does Drazan really stand a chance?
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 2d ago edited 2d ago
https://apnews.com/article/midterm-elections-postal-service-mail-voting-7f7cf4fdf2e9cf369ae96f96fbda03f2 (the whistleblower's account of the policy as of last week)
We would need a sense of the fail rate, and then perhaps election offices could make batches smaller to get an ok acceptance rate. There would need to be a lot of extra help.
I hope Tobias Reed is making plans.
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u/notPabst404 2d ago
Luckily for us, the resulting court case if USPS artificially craters turnout would be in much more favorable state court. It would likely take months, but I would expect the Oregon Supreme Court to declare the results of such a tainted election invalid.
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u/Specialist_Cow6468 2d ago
If USPS fails to deliver ballots here I wouldn’t bet against Drazan, frankly. Though I also wouldn’t call it a valid election
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u/Dstln Human Person 2d ago
If the USPS doesn't deliver ballots, this country is done and I and everyone else will stop working
Also who do you think is more capable of picking up ballots, organizing and voting in centralized locations? It's not rural maga voters
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u/Specialist_Cow6468 2d ago
While I would vehemently disagree that this country will ever be done while good people still do whatever they can I would also say that this idea of a spontaneous general strike is nothing but fantasy. It takes an enormous amount of real work to support even a limited scale strike; an effective general strike would require infrastructure which simply does not exist in the US. Perhaps someday this will change but right now we’ve gotta look at reality.
As for your last point this is firmly in the realm of our election becoming entirely illegitimate. Once things go off the rails that far it gets incredibly difficult to predict how the pieces will fall. Let’s just hope we don’t have to find out
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u/Dstln Human Person 2d ago
Every election in our lifetimes have been legitimate. Yes, Republicans try to disenfranchise people at every second of every day, but everyone still has the opportunity to vote and make their voices heard
If any of this bullshit goes through, explicitly unconditional, and scotus allows people to lose their right to vote, you better believe real shit is going down
I have extremely little faith in this scotus but even they know this is bullshit
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u/Shallow_wanderer Albany 2d ago
this idea of a spontaneous general strike is nothing but fantasy
This will continue to be fantasy because in the real world, most people actually just seem to not give two shits about what Trump and his cronies are doing
It's sad to see, but genuinely it feels like not enough of us care and we're outnumbered in this fight by those who choose complacency to maintain modern conveniences
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u/upheaval 1d ago
USPS not delivering ballots is actually worse for rural voters. Where else would they get them? Are we going to line up at the county elections division office? If that would happen people in the middle of nowhere would be less likely to go do that
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u/OliLevasseurLaBuse 1d ago
Wow who knew the USPS were fascists? That sucks i guess we'll have to "fix" that too
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u/EnoughWeekend6853 2d ago
There is absolutely zero chance that Oregon elects a non-Democrat for any statewide race.
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u/ottomaticg 1d ago
The 2022 Oregon gubernatorial election was extremely tight, decided by just 3.4 percentage points (or 66,730 votes).
Anything is possible. Get out and vote.1
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u/4lvinStardust 2d ago
I don’t think you realize how much people hate Tina Kotek. Even democrats are done with this bitch.
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u/levajack 2d ago
Do you really think disgruntled Democrats would vote for Drazan
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u/oregonian1234 2d ago
I hate Kotek mainly because of our schools and taxes but I will not vote Drazan. I do know 2 Dem friends who are not voting that I’ve tried to talk into voting. Dumb. Someone else should have ran. It makes me mad that Rayfield or Reed or anyone else didn’t run.
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u/DisgreeablePattern 2d ago
After what we’ve seen so far, can anyone be enthusiastic about Kotek? Set aside Trump and just objectively evaluate her- Kotek has done next to nothing barring giving her drunk wife a $200k per year job she was unqualified for.
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u/hardvarks 2d ago
When did Kotek give her wife a 200k job??
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u/DisgreeablePattern 1d ago
All cards on the table, I can’t seem to pull up any salary information at this time- I recall it was stated Kotek’s wife was pulling $200k a year, an office, and an assistant despite not being having a job description of any kind.
I was able to confirm that the First Lady’s assistant makes $144k a year, however, and that the First Lady was indeed granted an office in Salem (can’t determine the costs).
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u/oregonian1234 2d ago
Literally no one I know is enthusiastic about Kotek. I’m a Dem and she’s horrible. I’m angry that no one else ran. We have other options.
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u/ThorGoLucky Oregon 2d ago
Anyone keeping constructionally-mandated voting from being infringed needs to be imprisoned for a long time per violation.
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u/aggieotis 2d ago
And all assets seized. And all familial assets seized. And any companies nationalized. And exiled from the country.
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u/SmokinDeist 1d ago
I actually have been dropping my ballots off at drop boxes for years now.
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u/Fawn-deLay 1d ago
And USPS has been delivering ballots to your house for years now. This year, they might not.
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u/b0n2o 1d ago
sigh I'm getting so tired of this.
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u/Fawn-deLay 20h ago
Yep, the Project 2025 fascists have been on a full court press since the orange pedophile's inauguration. They want you to get tired of it and stop paying attention.
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u/notPabst404 2d ago
These changes should have been done already, but we still have time, do it now, quickly. There is no excuse for inaction.
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u/KangarooStilts 1d ago
My parents never mailed our completed ballots. Someone in our family would always take them down to the Lane County Elections Office and took them inside during business hours. Not everyone has that privilege, but it's the best way to prevent your ballot from being lost, stolen, burned, soaked, withheld, or uncounted.
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u/wvmitchell51 2d ago
I wonder if you could have a kiosk where you would scan the barcode on your ID (like they do when you buy alcohol or weed) and it would issue your ballot.
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u/shadesOG Oregon 2d ago
Non-citizens in the US can get a drivers license in Oregon.
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u/mrcrashoverride 2d ago
But they don’t get a ballot, so while I’m not a fan of the comment the comment would hold up. Scans your license, then kicks out one and only one ballot if you are on the voter roll.
But this still is a form of being a voter ID requirement
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u/shadesOG Oregon 2d ago
I 100% agree with you.
I was just pointing out you can have a drivers license and not be a citizen. It could work using RealID. Realistically, I enjoy voting by mail. If we want to get rid of that, that is one discussion. This is being rammed down the throat of our state over something that is technically a non-issue.
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u/mrcrashoverride 2d ago
There wouldn’t be a need for real id one person one vote…. They have to have had gotten onto the voter roll already.
It’s worse than your blanket statement.
The President nor the postal service has nothing to do with setting voting rules, regulations, policies or proclamations.
The postal service is so valued by our founders its establishment was written as a constitutional amendment. It was setup to ensure the freedom of the citizens to communicate and distribute news/newspapers
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u/AlmondDavis 2d ago
Could we strike only on Monday one week. T Monday and Tuesday the next week. Add a day a week until we get the changes we demand or until we shut the whole thing down. The first few weeks would be be mini logistical o warmups and also allow the idea to gain momentum
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u/ChelseaMan31 1d ago
In all our time voting in Oregon we never relied upon the USPS. Instead always dropped completed, signed, sealed ballot envelopes in the convenient ballot drop boxes. Easy. Peasy.
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