Secretary of State Read discusses election security with Union County voters

Union County voters who came to La Grande for a League of Women Voters forum pressed Secretary of State Tobias Read on a basic question with high stakes: how can they trust the vote-by-mail system? Read answered by pointing to Oregon’s paper ballots, voting machines that are never connected to the internet and post-election checks required in every county.

The discussion came as the May 19, 2026, statewide primary neared, with voter registration for that election closing April 28 and county ballots beginning to go out in late April. For Union County residents trying to verify how the process works, the basics start at the local level. The Union County elections office handles voter registration and election administration, while the Oregon Secretary of State oversees the system statewide.

Read framed Oregon’s process as one built to balance access and integrity. State election officials say counties use paper ballots, count them with machines kept offline and then verify results through hand recounts or risk-limiting audits after primary, general and special elections. Oregon law requires those reviews in all 36 counties, giving each county elections office a role in confirming the accuracy of the final tally.

That local structure was part of Read’s message in La Grande. His office says county clerks are on the front lines of protecting elections, and Read recently completed visits to all 36 Oregon county clerks in their home counties. The stop in Union County fit that broader outreach and underscored a point voters can check for themselves: election administration in Oregon is county-based, even when the rules are set statewide.

State officials have also been explicit in describing Oregon’s vote-by-mail system as a national gold standard for access and integrity. In practice, that means voters in Union County can track the same chain of safeguards used elsewhere in the state, from mailed ballots to local verification steps after Election Day. What remains unresolved for many voters is not whether safeguards exist, but whether those safeguards are visible enough to answer lingering doubts. Read’s visit suggested the state now sees that trust as something that must be earned in places like La Grande, one county clerk and one ballot at a time.