The Supreme Court has rejected a request from a group of Oregon voters who want to strike down their state’s universal vote-by-mail elections.
More than a dozen voters asked the high court to review Oregon’s 100 percent mail-in ballot system and put an injunction on the process due to “insecure electronic tabulating machines and ineffective election checks.”
The petitioners included include several prominent Republicans: state Sen. Dennis Linthicum, former gubernatorial candidate Marc Thielman, U.S. House candidate Ben Edtl, and Janice Designer and Don Powers who co-chair the state GOP’s election integrity committee.
The state has had its mail-in ballot system in place for 24 years. Voters in the state adopted an initiative in 1998 that made Oregon the first state to establish a universal vote-by-mail process.
The voters lost their challenge in a lower court, where the judges reasoned they lacked a specific legal injury to bring the case.
“Petitioners here cannot precisely discover the manipulations at play because the conduct of elections in Oregon is a black box and the people are systematically prevented from knowing what goes on inside,” their petition to the high court read.
“However, election characteristics and anomalies visible to petitioners are entirely consistent with fraudulent manipulation of elections by those in power. Given the self-perpetuating nature of party control obtained through election corruption, how do Oregonians escape the boxed canyon of this scenario, and the disenfranchisement of their vote? What are their options? Fortunately, for the people, Oregon is not Venezuela; here they have the protection of the United States Constitution.”
They sued the Oregon Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade, who did not file a reply to the petition.
Without comment, the justices announced Monday the court would not hear the voters’ appeal. It would have taken four justices to vote in favor of hearing the case for oral arguments to have been scheduled.
Eight states currently allow all-mail elections: Oregon, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.