Central Oregon county clerks increase safety amid several ‘suspicious envelopes’ sent to offices across the state
Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison: 'What I can do is just respond to it with facts'
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ)-- Mail in ballots from last week's special election are still arriving at the Deschutes County Clerk's Office, and if postmarked by Nov. 7 can be counted through this Tuesday. Next up is the May 2024 election and then in November of next year, the presidential election.
Deschutes and Crook counties are taking more precautions to protect staff. According to county Clerk Steve Dennison, election officials are expected to wear gloves when handling mail-in ballots going orward and the office will have Narcan on hand, in case of contact with contaminated ballots.
Those plans were in the works prior to the FBI in Portland investigating multiple suspicious envelopes sent to county offices across the state.
Crook County Clerk Cheryl Seely said, "You kind of expect the worst, and then know that that's probably not going to happen. But, you know, hopefully, I mean. If you expect it to be a lot easier, that's not going to happen, either."
Dennison says it's hard to predict what safety precautions will be needed.
"I don't have a crystal ball, you know -- I have no way to know," he said. "None of us have any way to know whether it's going to get better or worse. But just based on what happened just a couple of years ago, I think we're in for some of that."
Crook County has installed bulletproof glass in front of offices and reworked the layout of the main office to ensure safety for employees, thanks to funding from a state grant.
Seely said, "We had a couple of threats that end up being something we of course would report to our sheriff's office. I have an outstanding sheriff's staff and they're always right there to help us go out and check these possible threats out."
Both county clerks say the most common problem is misinformation, and in Deschutes County, Dennison expects the atmosphere surrounding the presidential primaries to cause some confusion.
"Somebody will put it on social media, saying that we changed their party affiliation, which is not the case," he said. " The voters change their their party affiliations. Voters can change that online on oregonvotes.gov, today all the way up through that deadline."
The county clerks remind voters they can call or email questions about an election or what's on the ballot.
"What I can do is just respond to it with facts," Dennison said. "We can talk about what the laws are that we follow, what the process is, what the rules are, the technology and the pieces that we have in place, just overall what we do and try to respond to it with fact."
