Oregon Secretary of State Urges Early Ballot Mailing After USPS Test
Secretary of State Tobias Read is urging Oregon voters to mail ballots by October 27 following a test that revealed significant postal delays in rural areas.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read is urging voters to mail their ballots by October 27 for the November 3 midterm elections. The recommendation follows a mail-delivery experiment conducted in August, where 36 county clerks tracked 108 pieces of mail to evaluate U.S. Postal Service performance. While all test items would have been postmarked in time to be counted, the results revealed significant delays in eastern and rural Oregon, including one piece of mail that took 11 days to reach Harney County.
To mitigate these delays, the state is launching a statewide ballot tracking website and installing more than 20 new ballot boxes. These initiatives are funded by a $1.25 million allocation from the Legislature’s Joint Emergency Board.
Read also warned voters to remain vigilant against intimidation, citing recent federal activity in the state as potential signs of interference. This includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in Brooks and the tear-gassing of protesters in Salem. These concerns coincide with broader attacks on vote-by-mail systems by President Donald Trump, who has refused to rule out deploying troops to polling locations.
