Union County to host town hall on election security with Tobias Read

Union County voters will get a direct look at how Oregon is guarding the May primary when Secretary of State Tobias Read joins a League of Women Voters town hall in La Grande.

The League of Women Voters of Union County is hosting the event on Monday, April 27, and the public is invited to join Read and local leaders for a conversation focused on election security. The timing puts Read in front of Union County residents just days after the Oregon Secretary of State’s office released its official 2026 Elections Toolkit on April 20.

That toolkit is designed as a trusted, nonpartisan resource for voters, county election offices, community partners and civic education groups. Its print materials are available in English, Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese, with videos in English and Spanish. For a county that will help set the tone for the May primary, the rollout is the clearest recent sign of how state officials plan to reinforce confidence in the process.

Read has been making similar public appearances with League of Women Voters chapters around Oregon, using them to explain how the state handles voter rights and voter-roll maintenance. At a League of Women Voters of Lane County event on January 27, he said Oregon keeps a list of inactive voters and that local elections officials work to keep the rolls current. That system is one of the safeguards voters are likely to hear about in La Grande, where the practical question is how ballots are protected and verified before they are counted.

Local election officials in Northeast Oregon have also said they receive training in election integrity and take the security of the process seriously. That matters in Union County, where the confidence of county clerks and election workers is part of what keeps the process moving smoothly when ballots arrive and are processed for a primary that can shape races well beyond La Grande.

The discussion comes against a backdrop of outside scrutiny. In March 2025, Read said a Trump executive order on election security would disenfranchise eligible voters without increasing security. In Union County, the town hall offers a chance to press him on what, if anything, has changed since past election cycles and which safeguards voters should expect to rely on when the May primary reaches their mailboxes and county offices begin the work of verifying and counting every ballot.