SALEM, Ore. — Oregon’s elections director and a political action committee that disenfranchised nearly 100 voters by turning their ballots in late have come to an agreement in which most of its fine will be suspended and the group will detail its procedures, officials said Friday.
The incident revealed a possible election vulnerability in Oregon, the first state to adopt an all-mail vote.
No one knows how many groups in Oregon collect filled-in ballots from voters in November because state officials in charge of elections have not tracked the activities.
In the agreement provided Friday by the secretary of state’s office, the directors of the Defend Oregon PAC agreed to disclose whether people taking completed ballots to the U.S. mail or to official election drop boxes are volunteers, employees or paid canvassers.
In addition the group will detail the training the people receive, the signs they use, and the process employed to gather and deliver ballots.
The group must also describe its procedures to track and count ballots, and how they are stored, secured and prepared for delivery.
More attention is being paid to voting by mail as doubts arise in the nation about the security of election systems that can be hacked and about reliance on aging or inadequate voting machines.
In Oregon, days before November’s elections, Defend Oregon went door-to-door in Portland and its suburbs and collected filled-in ballots from voters, saying they would send them in.
But it delivered 97 ballots to an elections office a day after the election. Officials said they were not counted, disenfranchising those voters. The committee was fined $94,750.
