Plan from Secretary of State Shemia Fagan would let election workers keep their addresses secret
Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker found 6-foot-tall painted white letters saying “VOTE DONT WORK. NEXT TIME BULLETS” in the parking lot across from her election office shortly after the 2020 election. (Chris Walker/Jackson County)
By JULIA SHUMWAY/Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM — Anyone harassing an election worker could face five years in prison or a $125,000 fine under a proposal considered by the Oregon Legislature.
House Bill 4144 is one of at least six attempts nationally this year to protect election workers following widespread harassment during and after the 2020 election. County election officials in Oregon have described receiving threats and cruel messages from people around the country, as a sizable minority of Americans still doubt the outcome or validity of the 2020 presidential election.
Secretary of State Shemia Fagan proposed a two-pronged plan to protect election workers, including the nonpartisan elected county clerks who run elections and the public employees and volunteers who help count ballots and verify signatures.
First, they could have their home addresses kept secret. That’s now allowed for people who can prove that they’re in danger if their address could be disclosed in a public record – think a survivor of domestic violence.
Fagan’s plan also would upgrade harassment, now a misdemeanor, to a felony if it’s committed against an election worker.
She told a legislative panel Tuesday that the changes were needed to help election workers feel safe continuing to run elections. At least three county clerks who oversaw the 2020 elections have retired or announced plans to, Fagan said, and 10 of the 13 state Election Division employees who responded to a survey last month said they were harassed while doing their jobs.
“As we head into the 2022 election season, we must do all that we can to protect election workers against physical harm fueled by misinformation,” Fagan said.
Fagan’s plan comes as Oregon legislators consider another proposal to increase penalties for anyone who assaults a person working in a hospital. House Bill 4142, which received approval from the first of two committees late last week, would make assaulting a health care worker a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $125,000 fine. Like election officials, health care workers have faced additional stress and job-related harassment because of pandemic developments over the past two years.
Oregon criminal justice advocates, who typically oppose legislation that could lead to more incarceration, have not publicly weighed in on either proposal.
Zach Winston, policy and outreach director at the Oregon Justice Resource Center, said in a statement that the organization generally objects to the idea that increasing criminal penalties will make workers safer, though it hasn’t taken a formal position on either bill.
“Too often we see reliance on harsher criminal penalties to try to solve problems when this has been shown to be ineffective and disproportionately impacts people of color and people with a mental health diagnosis,” he said. “People who might commit assault often know little about the punishment specific crimes may attract so we should be skeptical of arguments that increasing penalties will deter violence.”
Nationally, criminal justice reform advocates have opposed such bills. In Washington, the American Civil Liberties Union came out against a similar proposal to elevate harassment of election workers to a felony.
“We understand the need for protecting election officials, and this is a very relevant topic right now, but we should be cautious not to use this moment to justify harsher criminal legal penalties beyond what already exist,” ACLU staff attorney Lisa Nowlin wrote in an email to the Oregon Capital Chronicle’s national affiliate.
The House rules committee took no action on Fagan’s plan Tuesday. Rep. Jack Zika, R-Redmond, questioned the increased penalties.
“A felony, to me, seems excessive,” Zika said. “But we can have that discussion at another time.”
Fagan replied that legislators can ultimately decide the appropriate punishment, but that the threats are serious and should be treated as such.
Those threats include a message Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker saw painted on the parking lot across the street from the clerk’s when she came to work in November 2020, a few weeks after the election.
“VOTE DONT WORK. NEXT TIME BULLETS,” someone had painted in 6-foot-tall white letters. Walker told the county sheriff, the secretary of state, the FBI and the federal Department of Homeland Security, and she and her small staff continued doing their jobs in a state of shock that one of their neighbors could have left such a message.
“If we stop living our lives and we give the power away to those bad players, we lose democracy,” Walker said. “We lose what we do. The work we do is fundamental in a free country, and we refuse to give that power away to them.”
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.