People can log into an Oregon owner’s voting bill using only his name and birth, and it appears that a poor artist could use the online application to send emails to foreign citizens. For that matter, the system does n’t seem to protect against someone claiming to be from abroad and fraudulently casting ballots in the names of domestic voters.
Oregon’s website votes site,” MyVote”, lets people access people ‘ registration details by entering a patient’s first and last name and birthday — which are often available electronically. From there, a fraudster could potentially indicate a resident’s ballot, claim he is an international voter, and then submit the resident’s defined ballot by fax or email, according to whistleblower Cara Tapken, an Oregon resident, who showed The Federalist how the site works.
The Hole
After logging into the company, operated by Democrat Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, some can get a politician’s target and party involvement, along with an online ballot-marking device that can be used to fill out a ballot for the resident, Tapken showed The Federalist. In at least some cases, the site asks for the resident’s zip code ( which is visible on the voter information page ) before allowing access to the ballot-marking system.
The website states that” all other voters should use the printed ballots received directly from their county elections office,” and that this tool is supposed to be limited to voters who are disabled or from abroad. However, the same online portal also allows a person to apply for citizenship abroad if they want to reportedly send a ballot by fax or email. The Federalist contacted Laura Kerns, communications director for the secretary of state’s office, to inquire how Oregon checks the status of those who use the portal to post ballots from abroad and whether Oregon even attempts to verify their identity, but she was unsuccessful in responding.
The online portal provides access to a secret ballot waiver form and a return envelope for users who claim to be from abroad. Both documents require signatures, and the portal allows users to print and sign both before emailing or faxing them, with the marked ballot, to a county election official. Making a false statement in this declaration is a felony punishable by up to five years ‘ imprisonment and a fine of up to$ 125, 000 and a civil offense punishable by penalties of up to$ 10, 000, according to the ballot return envelope.
The only other security measure cited in the portal is signature verification, which has proved to be lax in states like Arizona and Michigan.
When Tapken visited the website in 2020, she claimed the secret ballot waiver form required that the provided address match the address listed on the Federal Post Card Application ( FPCA ), which is the form used by foreign voters to request a ballot. But when Tapken more recently accessed the site, it did not mention this address-matching requirement. A 2021 update to state election law apparently omitted the requirement. Kerns did not respond to The Federalist’s query regarding whether the secretary’s office checks that the voter’s address is accurate when it is entered into the voter registration form. Additionally, she did not respond to a query about whether Oregon authenticates that those who send emailed ballots are registered as foreigners.
Kerns did not specify which security measures, if any, would prevent someone from using the online voting portal to access an Oregon voter’s information page, fill out a resident’s ballot, and, by claiming the resident is an overseas voter, cast that resident’s vote by email.
Kerns claimed the system has “multiple layers of security that ensure it wo n’t be misused” and that there is” no evidence of anyone successfully misusing this system.” She cast the overseas voting system as “military voting”, even though it includes , civilians , residing outside of America and not just military members.  ,
However, Kerns declined to respond to The Federalist’s inquiries about how the state verified claims that a person was an eligible foreign voter. She also declined to provide no explanation for the flaws Tapken described to The Federalist. Rather, the only , safeguards she , pointed to were , the fact that falsely submitting a ballot is illegal, the assertion that election officials would notice “if multiple ballots have been submitted by a single voter”, the monitoring of” site traffic”, and the aforementioned — but unspecified — “multiple layers of security on the MyVote system”.
To update one’s voter registration on the” MyVote” portal, the site only requires one’s first and last name, birthday, and driver’s license or ID number. To prove identity, Oregon voter registration cards only require a driver’s license number, the last four digits of one’s Social Security number, or another form of ID such as a bank statement or utility bill.
The” Freeway to Fraud”
Oregon’s” MyVote” loophole poses an even greater concern to Oregon voters in light of a massive 2023 data breach. In a breach that affected 90 percent of state license and identification holders last year, hackers accessed the information of close to 3.5 million residents through the Oregon DMV, according to KOIN. The DMV said at the time that residents with an ID” should assume]their ] personal information was exposed”. More than 1, 500 potential noncitizens were registered as part of the Oregon DMV’s “motor voter” system, according to a recent investigation by The Federalist, following which a cursory investigation this month revealed irregularities and oversights.
Republican state senator Dennis Linthicum claimed that the state election system has no restrictions on how bad actors can access and flood officials with erroneous ballots. Linthicum has been in charge since 2017, and he is currently the party’s nominee for secretary of state.
” There’s nothing in place”, Linthicum said. ” Welcome to Oregon, we make everything easy”.
He claimed that Oregon’s voter registration process does n’t demand a full Social Security number. He also took issue with the state accepting “personal attestation”, or voters ‘ claims that they are eligible, at face value.
This freeway has been made to be fraudulent by the Democratic majority. This is n’t accidental. None of this is accidental. This is purposeful”, Linthicum said.
Tapken, who has since been trying to spread the word, told The Federalist that she first learned about the problem in 2020. ” Never once did it ask me to prove who I was”, Tapken said. ” If I could do this that easy, just me, what about others” ? ,
Tapken claimed that she attempted to contact the then-Gov. Kate Brown, now-Gov. Tina Kotek, Griffin-Valade, the state elections office, and news outlets.
” I got 50 people between legislative, between news media, between the elections office, and not a single one of them had done anything about any of it”, Tapken said. ” Happy 2024 voting. Maybe someone voted for you already, maybe not”.
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Logan Washburn is a staff writer who writes about election ethics. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan was born and raised in Central Oregon, but now resides in rural Michigan.