Cautionary tale of voter fraud in Central Oregon

Losing your vote this November could be as simple as throwing out the garbage. A Deschutes County woman was the victim of voter fraud and is sharing her story now, so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Sharon Barney-Orlando was out of town during the January special election. So when her ballot came in the mail, her husband recycled it without a second thought.

About a week later, Barney-Orlando received a letter from the Deschutes County Clerk’s office. Someone had stolen the ballot, forged her signature — and, in doing so, stolen her vote.

Election officials caught the mismatched signatures and didn’t count the ballot. Instead, they sent out a notice to confirm whether Barney-Orlando signed it, and it was a fluke, or if someone harmed the integrity of her ballot.

The note she received read: “Notice – your signature does not match” the signatures in your voter registration record.

“It certainly woke me up to the fact that, if I didn’t have that privilege (of voting), that would make me very unhappy,” Barney-Orlando said Tuesday. “I guess you don’t really think about things that people might be going through your recycling, or your trash, or things of that nature, but apparently they do.”

Someone who commits and is caught and convicted voter fraud faces a possible fine up to $125,000 and/or up to five years in prison.

If a person becomes the victim of voter fraud, they have 14 days starting the day after an election day to take action or risk losing their “active voter” status.

“If we suspect voter fraud, we then submit that to the Secretary of State’s office, the election division, who investigates that,” Deschutes County Clerk Nancy Blankenship said. “It could go on to the attorney general’s office or Department of Justice.”

For example, if a voter gets a similar notice for the upcoming Nov. 6 election, they have to respond by Nov. 21 or their voting status becomes inactive. That means they cannot vote, cannot sign petitions and won’t be sent any more ballots until they fix their voter status.

This is a cautionary tale, to be sure, but is it a common one?

The short answer is, no.

Nearly 3 million people in Oregon are registered to vote (as of September.) More than 500,000 of those people live in Oregon’s Second Congressional District.

Reports from the Secretary of State’s office show that during the 2016 presidential election, there were just there were 54 cases of potential voter fraud in Oregon.

That works out to about 0.002%. Not much.

In Deschutes County, officials opened just five voter fraud cases in all of 2016.

If someone does want to get rid of their ballot, Blankenship had a few suggestions to do so safely.

“If you receive your ballot and you’re not interested in participating for some reason, it would be ideal probably for you to shred that so people can’t gain access to it,” Blankenship said. “I don’t recommend people give their ballot to just anyone who might be out there collecting ballots. I think people should look at that as maybe like, their mortgage payment.”

If you suspect you’re a victim of voter fraud, Blankenship said you should contact your county clerk’s office immediately.