Oregon elections officials field high volume of questions about elections integrity

With lower than every week earlier than midterms, Oregon elections officers say they’re fielding a higher-than-usual quantity of calls about how votes are counted.

“There’s a whole lot of concern from the general public that tabulation programs could be weak to hacking, or that they could be programmed in such a approach as to ship false outcomes; that is misinformation,” mentioned Dan Forester, Washington County elections supervisor, throughout an interview with OPB’s Suppose Out Loud.

Misinformation round elections has risen since former President Donald Trump misplaced his re-election bid in 2020 and commenced pushing false claims that American elections are rife with fraud. Election staff in Oregon and throughout the nation have confronted extra scrutiny due to these false claims.

Forester and different officers have mentioned there are quite a few safeguards to make sure ballot-counting machines in Oregon are correct. As an illustration, they’re not linked to the web or any community that may be hacked. There are additionally a number of inside and public checks main as much as an election.

Forester mentioned Washington County runs about 4,500 ballots by way of every of its six tabulating machines a couple of month earlier than Election Day. Among the check ballots are clean, and a few are stuffed out to check numerous voting patterns — like if somebody marks a couple of selection in a contest, or doesn’t fill out a selection in any respect.

Elections officers are additionally required by state legislation to carry out a number of public checks. Throughout these checks, members of the general public can watch officers run check ballots by way of counting machines and analyze the outcomes to confirm their accuracy.

Forester mentioned Washington County does two public checks earlier than any ballots are tabulated, then one other one on the certification deadline.

“If we do the check at first and the top and we get the identical outcomes, we are able to exhibit that the machines have been working appropriately for the entire election,” Forester mentioned.

Elections officers additionally run audits after an election, throughout which they check a small variety of ballots to make sure their accuracy.

Oregon voters have till 8 p.m. Tuesday to take their poll to a drop field or have their ballots postmarked.