A conservative group is currently attempting to send two measures which are meant to protect the right to vote to the ballot box, according to KLCC. Two groups have filed two referendum petitions which, if successful at collecting the almost 75,000 signatures, would require two bills passed in the legislative session to be voted on by the citizens of Oregon.
The groups have until Sept. 24 to collect the signatures needed to bring the measures to the ballot.
House Bill 2681
The group is targeting House Bill 2681, which prevents voters from being labeled as “inactive” no matter how many elections they don’t vote in. Currently, if a registered Oregon voter doesn’t vote in an election, they are still sent a mail-in ballot until they haven’t participated in the election for 10 years. HB 2681 changes this law to allow a ballot to be sent supposedly indefinitely, regardless of a person’s voting participation.
Supported by the late Secretary of State Dennis Richardson — who holds some sway with Republican lawmakers even after death, HB2681 stands directly opposed to the general direction many states are heading with voting law changes by providing more flexible and generous allowances to voters who don’t regularly turn in their ballots. Interestingly, it was Richardson who changed the number of years a voter would have before being labeled inactive from five to 10.
House Bill 3291
Oregonians for Fair Elections are also targeting House Bill 3291, which would allow ballots postmarked by election day to be counted up to a week after the election.
Currently, ballots have a “mail by date” to let voters know the last date they can mail in their ballot to have it be counted. Drop-off boxes are then provided across the state for voters who wait until the last minute. The goal has always been to have all eligible votes in by 8 p.m. of election day.
HB 3291 would give Oregon voters an opportunity offered in other states that use vote-by-mail. Provided the ballot has a postmark of election day and arrives to election officials within a week of election day, it will be counted.
The Petitions
Claiming to be a group focused on keeping Oregon elections fair, Oregonians for Fair Elections refers to their attempt to bring these bills to the voters themselves as “giving the voters a voice to reject” the bills. Speaking of HB 2681, they claim that it “guts voter list maintenance by allowing the voters [sic] address to be out of date and inaccurate.”
They are joined by the group Clean Voter Rolls which says that if HB 2681 “goes into effect, then no one will be required to keep their voter registration up to date” and that “Oregon voters rolls will become dirty and bloated.”
And while HB 3291 passed, it was along party lines. The Democratic party has control of all three branches of Oregon’s legislature, leaving many Oregon Republicans unhappy. However, a committee has not yet been set up to address this bill.
One of the people taking aim at these bills is a woman from Multnomah County named Janice Dysinger.
Insight Into Dysinger
Oregonians for Fair Elections president, Janice Dysinger, describes herself as an “election integrity activist” on her Linkedin page, and says that she is “Lobbying for election law that insure [sic] all eligible votes are counted accurately and fairly.” While Dysinger has a Twitter account, she has not tweeted since October 27, 2020, when she promoted Donald Trump Jr.’s conspiracy theory that Hunter Biden is a Chinese spy.
Dysinger is more active on Facebook, where she promotes anti-vaccine opinions — despite her husband currently being in the hospital for COVID-19 — and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. She attempted to link Mike Lindell’s “Absolute Proof” video on February 5, followed up by a post reading “Truth is being suppressed by FB” due to warnings of the link being directed to a conspiracy theory website.
“Donald Trump is the legal President. He actually won the election. Biden has no clothes,” reads an April 20 post from Dysinger.
She posted several times to promote both the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., as well as a similar rally taking place in Salem. She posted the next day, “After today’s events, it is clear who doesn’t want you to know about China’s threat to our Republic. Instead their focus in [sic] on Trump.
In a post from January 9, Dysinger then backtracked and claimed that it was actually “Antifa” who stormed the Capitol, linking to a now removed YouTube video. “Informative video. FB ‘Fact Chekers’[sic] says has a problem but instead this shows Antifa involvement with the breach at the capital [sic]. These are people with video proof of Antifa jumping in and rioting. I see Trump people trying to hold them back,” Dysinger wrote.
Dysinger went on to make several posts, suggesting that the inauguration of Joe Biden was faked, asking, “Did the inauguration look like a cgi event to you?”
By Millicent Durand
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