Local and state elected officials descend on Bend on Thursday, Sept. 3 on the first stop of Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read’s Oregon Votes Town Hall series. The 6pm town hall will be in the Edward J. Ray Hall, 1500 SW Chandler Ave., at Oregon State University-Cascades. It’s slated to last one hour.
Panelists attending include Read and Sen. Anthony Broadman, Rep. Emerson Levy, Rep. Jason Kropf and Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison. Aaron Switzer, owner and founder of the Source, will act as moderator.
The town hall is open to the public, who can submit questions that might be addressed depending on the time available. A livestream will be available for those who can’t attend in person.
The next stop on Read’s tour is Tuesday, Sept. 8 in Gresham. He’ll conduct at least five town halls during election season. He said he believes voting rights and eligibility will be a hot topic.
“There are a lot of Oregonians worried about the federal government’s repeated attempts to control who gets to vote,” he said just prior to the town hall. “Those concerns are valid – it is unprecedented to have a sitting president actively trying to undermine an ongoing election. But we will have a free and fair election this November, and I want to make sure Oregonians are prepared to vote and that their vote gets counted.”
This week, Read responded to a claim by a U.S. Postal Service insider that an executive order, currently being contested in federal court, could see the right to vote being denied to eligible voters.
“I’m not going to let the Trump administration deny a single Oregon citizen their legal right to vote. I will use every tool available to protect the security and integrity of our elections. We will continue to challenge this USPS plan, and we will continue to have safe, accurate, and fair vote-by-mail elections in Oregon – regardless of what happens with the USPS,” Read said in the statement. “This whistleblower report reinforces what we already knew: this Executive Order and the USPS implementation of it will make it harder for American citizens to vote. It’s un-American, unconstitutional, and an insult to everyone who sacrificed for our democracy.”
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