Secretary of State Tobias Read in Portland, Ore., Nov. 5, 2024. Read, a Democrat, says Trump's newest order regarding elections would disenfranchise eligible voters without increasing security.
Brooke Herbert / OPB
President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order on election security Tuesday could result in big changes to how Oregon conducts elections. But the state’s top elections official says he’s not rushing to upend how the state does things.
“I don’t think it’s legal,” Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat, told OPB on Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s going to stand. I certainly think it will be challenged.”
Trump’s order would assume control over elections decisions that are currently handled by states, a move that critics have described as unconstitutional overreach.
Among its most eye-catching provisions, the order would require voters to submit a document proving their U.S. citizenship – such as a passport or REAL I.D. – when registering to vote. While it’s already illegal to vote in federal elections as a noncitizen, Oregon and other states only require an attestation of citizenship rather than proof for most voter registrations.
The order would also force Oregon to roll back a 2021 change that directed county clerks to accept mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day, even if they arrive up to a week after polls close.
And the president’s order would force states to share voter rolls and other data with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Government Efficiency or risk losing out on millions of annual federal funding.
As Read suggested, the legality of those moves is almost certain to be challenged in coming days. The U.S. Constitution gives states authority over setting the details of elections, though Congress can pass regulations of its own. Foes of Trump’s order have said presidential power has no role.
“It’s a power grab,” said Kate Titus of the group Common Cause Oregon.
Read said Wednesday he has been in talks with Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield over how to respond. Rayfield has already joined other Democratic attorneys general in suing Trump at least nine times since January.
Trump, who has made false claims about widespread election fraud for nearly a decade, said too many states have lax policies that imperil the integrity of elections. “Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” the order said.
Read said the order would have the overriding effect of decreasing participation of eligible voters, and could make elections less secure in the process.
He and other critics of strict voter ID laws point to research by the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice that suggests around 9% of eligible voters don’t have easy access to documents that can prove their citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. If that number is accurate, Read said nearly 300,000 of Oregon’s 3 million voters would have had a hard time registering under the law Trump envisions.
“There’s a fundamental American right that every citizen has to hold politicians accountable at the ballot box,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be making moves that imperil that or make it more difficult for people.”
In Oregon, the specter of noncitizen voting has seen fresh headlines. Last year, the state’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services office revealed it had found errors in the state’s pioneering Motor Voter program, which automatically registers people to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or state ID.
Under Motor Voter, Oregonians are only supposed to be added to voter rolls if they use a document that proves citizenship – like a passport or birth certificate – when applying for a license. But the state said it mistakenly registered more than 1,500 people who offered no proof. Officials ultimately found just a handful of those people voted, and say they have corrected the error.
But to critics of Oregon’s system, the changes Trump is proposing are welcome.
“We’re tired of hearing the lazy argument that having to prove who you are is somehow suppression,” said Ashley Kuenzi, a spokeswoman for Oregon’s Senate Republican Office. “It’s a necessary and straightforward step to protect the integrity of our elections, especially after [Gov.] Tina Kotek’s DMV mishandled voter registrations and severely undermined public trust in Oregon’s election system.”
House Republican Leader Christine Drazan agreed.
“Individuals are asked to provide identification to get on a plane, to buy a beer, to get a job, but all of the sudden there is a weird concern that an ID will have a chilling effect on voting,” the Canby Republican said in a statement to OPB. “I don’t buy it.”
Read and Titus also took issue with Trump’s order to reject ballots received after the election. Oregon and some other states with mail voting currently count ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. The state tallied 13,596 such votes in last year’s election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Even though the policy is relatively recent, Titus worries such a rollback would needlessly disenfranchise voters – particularly amid worries over slower postal delivery timelines in Oregon. She fears the rule could be just the beginning of a broader attack on vote by mail.
Read also suggested Oregon elections could be less secure – not more – if the state enters into data sharing agreements required by Trump’s order.
“I don’t think there’s any shortage of information suggesting that this administration is not exactly holding up privacy in the way that we would like,” he said.
The order threatens to withhold federal funding from states that don’t comply. The Secretary of State’s Office said some of the money that could be lost has been used to bolster election security. It pointed to $12 million in current grants being used to help Oregon troops vote securely and update the state’s voter registration system.
“We’re talking about the funding that some counties have used in the past for security cameras in their elections offices,” Read said.
Read isn’t the only Pacific Northwest elections official raising alarms. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs issued a statement Wednesday that the order “undermines decades of bipartisan work that has made Washington’s elections a national model.”
That statement suggested that Washington would participate in a legal challenge to the rule.
