Oregon - Potentially the biggest voting disaster since Florida

According to the Multnomah County, OR site, voters passed a ballot measure directing all elections to be conducted by mail in 1998. No doubt, some people will say, "OR has been doing Vote By Mail for 10 years. It must be successful." Well, let me break things down for you a little bit. That's 2 presidential elections (not including the current race), 3 gubernatorial elections, and 3 U.S. Senate elections (not including the Class 2 election this year. Digging a little further we find that: 1) In the 2000 presidential election, only approximately 17,000 OR citizens voted for Gore over GWB and only approximately 76,000 OR citizens voted for Kerry over GWB in the 2004 presidential election; alas, this did not matter because GWB "won" both elections, 2) OR has had the same governor since the 2002 election (he's currently serving his 2nd term), and 3) The northwestern state has had the same 2 senators since 1998. To summarize, only 2 presidents have been in office since 1998, only 2 OR governors have been in office since 1998, and the same 2 OR senators have been in office since 1998. In my opinion, that's not much of a proving ground for the success or failure of Vote By Mail elections.

Proving ground aside, all sorts of problems can arise when using a 100% vote by mail election process. The Multnomah County site expresses some legitimate concerns in their FAQ:

1) What if a mistake is made on the ballot? While they explain what to do, the only way to assure that the ballot is not misinterpreted is to get a replacement. Honestly, how many people do you think are going to do that (i.e. call for or pick up a replacement ballot)?

2) What If I forget to sign my return envelope and I have already mailed it? They state that they will mail the ballot back to you. However, there is a disclaimer: "unless there is not time to return it by mail." Yes, they say you can come to their office to sign it. Again, how many people are going to do that?

3) How do I know if my ballot was received? They say you can call the county election office for your county. Broken record . . . how many people are going to do that? Sure, there are some obsessive compulsives out there, but most aren't going to go through the trouble.

Another concern is raised by the Washington Post:

"Tens of thousands of Oregonians switched their registration from Republican or unaffiliated so they could vote in the Democratic primary. But many switched so close to the April 29 deadline that election officials had already prepared ballots to send to them under their previous registrations. Pulling out those ballots would have been too arduous for most counties, so 33,500 voters received ballots for both parties.

State officials insist this won't be a problem. The scanners that will be used to count the ballots -- all counting is done on the day of the election-- are designed to only count the ballots that are in accord with the voter's new registration status."

This might not sound like a big deal to some, but Oregon is a closed primary state. This means that registered Democrats can only vote Democrat and registered Republicans can only vote Republican. If you're an Independent or one of the many minor "3rd parties", you're screwed unless you register as Democrat or Republican before the deadline. What if the current registration status is not the "new" registration status? Those people are likely not mailed the appropriate ballot -if any ballot at all. Thus, tens of thousands of people who might have voted for Hillary might well have been unable to vote. And what about those voters who decided not to change their status from Independent to Democrat or Republican? As you can see, the vote by mail process is quite problematic and closed primaries only add to the issue.

I'm not claiming that Hillary could have easily won in OR. In fact, their process makes it highly improbable for the underdog to win. Even so, I have to ask why Hillary didn't do some heavy campaigning there? She did do some campaigning there, but considering Oregon's Vote By Mail system, it was more than likely too little, too late. While I have to say "shame on Oregon", I have to say "shame on Hillary" too. She knew, or should have known, their process. Yet, she didn't campaign there in early April before many people would have already mailed their ballots.

Yeah, Barack. You won in OR. Perhaps unfair and not very square, but you won. That's OK. According to my predictions, Hillary's got you beat big time in Puerto Rico. I'm showing her winning in Montana and South Dakota as well. Those wins as well as a fair (or even slightly "more than fair") division of the MI and FL delegates or even re-votes in both states should bring Hillary over the top. It was a great game, Barack. You had the lead for a while. But it's time to say goodbye!