Oregon lawmakers agreed to spend an additional $1.25 million to increase the number of ballot drop boxes across the state.
Secretary of State Tobias Read requested emergency funds from state lawmakers to buy 20 more drop boxes and to pay election officials for what he expects will be more voters using ballot drop boxes rather than mailing their ballots this fall.
Oregon election officials are encouraging voters to choose the drop box over the mailbox this Election Day.
“I told Oregonians I would use every tool available to ensure Oregon’s elections remain secure, accurate, and fair despite ongoing federal attacks,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a statement. “Oregonians will have more secure locations to return their ballots this election and a tool to be confident that their vote was counted.”
Read’s effort to increase the number of ballot boxes is tied to a concern that United States Postal Service changes resulted in slower processing of ballots. But the push for emergency funding started to feel more urgent in recent weeks as the very notion of mail-in voting in Oregon and across the nation has been caught in the middle of a legal battle.
Oregon officials have said repeatedly they are confident that the Nov. 3 election will play out as usual. But Read, a Democrat elected to office in 2024, has argued the additional funding will help.
An additional $618,000 will pay for the new drop boxes; $154,000 will go toward BallotTrax, an opt-in option for voters to be able to track the status of their ballot; and $480,000 is earmarked for counties to send updated voter notification cards to inactive voters in an attempt to update the voter list and clear out any inactive voters.
Across the nation, Trump’s executive order targeting vote-by-mail would allow the Postal Service to decide which voters can receive a ballot, if states agree to comply by sharing their records with the USPS. That order has sparked confusion. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in before the midterm elections, which are less than two months away.
Oregon voters have been voting by mail since the 1990s.
