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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. My dad had a favorite expression he'd say to me when I was a kid: If I had a dime for every time you forgot to take out the trash, I'd be rich. Well, in that same vein, if we all had a dime for every time President Trump equated fraud with elections, we'd all be rich. The president has put that assertion into practice by trying to severely restrict voting rights. Today on the show, we'll talk with our colleague at OPB about a recent ruling from the Supreme Court that thwarts the president's attempt to restrict vote-by-mail results, and of course, as one of the pioneers of mail-in ballots, that's a big deal for Oregonians. Then, in the last part of the show, you'll meet our newest intern at KLCC. Dirk VanderHart, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on.
Dirk VanderHart: Yeah, hey Michael. Good to be here.
Dunne: You wrote the story. Obviously there have been a lot of Supreme Court decisions coming out in the last couple of days. We're going to focus on one they made on Monday about ballots arriving after Election Day. Tell us what SCOTUS did.
VanderHart: Yeah, this was a case out of Mississippi, which has an election law very similar to laws that Oregon, Washington and others use. The Mississippi law says you can vote by mail in Mississippi, and as long as your ballot arrives by mail up to five days after the election, if there's a postmark that shows you mailed it by Election Day, you're good. They will count your ballot. In Oregon, we have a slightly different law: As long as your ballot is postmarked by Election Day, they will accept it if it arrives up to a week after the election. But this case was focused on Mississippi, and there was a challenge from Republican groups that said five days after an election is not Election Day, that we need a hard deadline on Election Day, and any ballots that come in later should not be counted. The Supreme Court disagreed. Two of the court's conservatives sided with all three of its liberals and said federal law doesn't make that distinction. As long as you can show that you mailed your ballot, you cast your vote by Election Day. Federal law says nothing about when your vote is actually counted, so that counts.
Dunne: And given the makeup of the court, six to three, breaking conservative to liberal, this was a bit of a surprise, wasn't it?
VanderHart: It was. I didn't personally watch oral arguments in this case, but folks who did came away thinking that many of the court's conservatives were skeptical, asking questions that seemed to indicate they did not, or might not, agree with accepting these late ballots. It turns out, though, that two of the more conservative members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wound up siding with the liberals, saying we would be reading too much into the fairly bare-bones language of federal law if we suddenly assigned all this new meaning to it. What federal law actually says is that there's an Election Day, and that Election Day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even years. We can't say much more than that. If Congress wants to change things, add more guardrails or create new restrictions, that's Congress's job. We are not going to do that ourselves.
Dunne: You pointed out what Republicans had said. I'm wondering, in addition to needing some sort of hard deadline, what were some of their other arguments? Obviously President Trump has been trying, in many ways, to get rid of vote-by-mail. Talk about some of their contentions here.
VanderHart: Well, sure. I don't understand every bit of this case, but what I laid out in terms of the arguments made is largely it for this case. It's Election Day. It doesn't mean five days after Election Day. Election Day means Election Day, and you'd better have your vote in and counted on Election Day. Otherwise, what are we even doing? That raised all sorts of concerns: If Election Day is the end-all-be-all, what does that mean for ballots that come in before an election, ones that election officials can begin tabulating, or at least processing, ahead of an election to help them get results once polls close? There were all sorts of concerns that arose out of this, and about what might happen if the Supreme Court said no. The other caution some election officials in Oregon had was this: Let's say the Supreme Court ruled that in federal races, U.S. Senate, for example, late ballots don't count, but it doesn't say anything about state races, like the race we're having this year for governor. What does that mean in a state like Oregon, where our state law says we accept ballots up to a week after Election Day if they have a valid postmark? Suddenly, are we in a position where we have to count late ballots for the governor's race, because that's state law, but we can't count them for the Senate race, because that's federal? All of a sudden, the complexity for state election officials grows, potentially very worrisome, and they would need to create all these new processes before this November election to figure out how to do that. I think that was one of the really big worries we saw. What we heard from election officials in the run-up to this decision is that they were having some very serious conversations, trying to lay out their contingency plans for what might need to happen if the court went the other way. Now here we are, the court didn't go that way, we're at the status quo, and most of that stuff is not necessary in the short term.
Dunne: Talk about what Tobias Read and Dan Rayfield had to say. What did our top officials tell you about this ruling?
VanderHart: They've been saying what you'd expect. They're both Democrats, and they're calling this a win, a win for democracy. Oregonians prize the ability to vote. Democrats in this state have made it a hallmark to try to open up voting to more and more people. That's one of the reasons for this postmark rule, as it's known: They want to make voting as easy and convenient as possible in this state. There's a reasoning that says as long as you drop your ballot in the mail by Election Day, that's casting your vote. It's easier for people to remember, but that's not quite the way things work anymore. Michael, we've seen consolidation in the Postal Service in recent years. There used to be two or three mail processing facilities in the state of Oregon. Now there's just one, in Portland, which means that if you're in many parts of Oregon, including Eugene, and you mail your ballot, it has to travel to Portland to get an automatic postmark. Voters who are savvy can go into a post office and have staff hand-cancel it, essentially postmarking it by hand. Most people won't do that, so the ballot will travel to Portland in most cases to get postmarked, which means it's not necessarily the case that the day you drop your mail in the mailbox, it gets postmarked. It's not even necessarily the case that it's postmarked the next day. We don't know what can happen when things are in transit, and that has complicated this postmark rule. One of the things Read said in reacting to this, that people should know, is that his recommendation is no longer to use the mail at all, frankly. His emphasis is: Use the ballot drop boxes that exist in every county, and vote early. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, if you have to vote by mail, do so at least a week out, particularly if you live outside about 50 miles of the Portland metro area. I think that reflects what I'm talking about, where there's only one postal processing center, so postmarks can be delayed.
Dunne: Do you have any statistics on late delivery? If, for some reason, this had gone another way and the Supreme Court had eliminated late-arriving ballots, would that have had a profound impact on elections, or not that much?
VanderHart: It's a good question. Most people we talked to as we prepared for this ruling, and again, I was preparing for the possibility that late-arriving ballots would go away, pointed out that in Oregon this wouldn't have been that big a deal. That's for a couple of reasons. One is that Oregon, and many listeners will probably know this, was one of the first states, or I believe the first, to be universally vote-by-mail. We started doing it for all of our elections in 2001, one of the first states to do it, real innovators in this field. But that wasn't the case for this postmark rule, this grace period for late-arriving ballots. Oregon only started accepting those beginning in the 2022 general election, so we haven't been doing it very long. The voters of this state haven't had many elections to get used to this late-arriving ballot rule. Many people probably don't even know it exists. We're not a California or a Washington, states that have been doing this far longer, where it's maybe baked into how people are used to voting. What we know from the two general elections where this has occurred is that people don't use it all that much. In 2022, the first election this was allowed, about 1.8% of the ballots counted came in after Election Day. In 2024, which was obviously the presidential election, a very high-profile election, fewer than that, 0.6% of the votes tallied statewide came in after Election Day. Oregonians aren't using this that much, so it probably wouldn't have been the end of the world. People probably could have gotten used to sending in their ballots a little earlier had this gone away.
Dunne: Would you remind our listeners, too: Very recently there was another ruling that went against the Trump administration regarding voter rolls, or proof that people are eligible voters. Can you remind folks about that ruling as well?
VanderHart: Yeah. As you noted up top, about the Trump administration trying to curtail or change vote-by-mail: There are two things outstanding. One is an executive order Trump issued, I believe in late March or early April, that had to do with who could vote. Trump wanted to create a stronger role for the U.S. Postal Service in states that allow vote-by-mail. Essentially, what they said is states need to send the Postal Service all their eligible voters, all the people who are okay to vote by mail in that state, and the Postal Service would essentially act as a gatekeeper, making sure only those people get mail delivered. That created a lot of concern among folks in Oregon and other Democratic-leaning states, particularly about why the federal government wants a bigger role, and whether the USPS could somehow be weaponized. More generally, there was an argument that the president doesn't have any role in setting election policy like that. States are the primary drivers of setting their own election laws. Congress has a role too, when it decides to step in, but the president is not granted any authority under the Constitution for that kind of thing. That's the ruling we saw last week. A federal judge in Massachusetts said this overextends the president's authority and put it on hold. The Trump administration is going to appeal, but that's where things stand right now, which preserves the status quo for Oregon, at least for this upcoming election. The other thing going on is that the president has been adamant about passing a bill he's put forward called the Save America Act, which does a lot. The big thing it would do is create very stringent new voter ID standards for people who vote by mail and make things more unwieldy. That's caught up in Congress right now. The president is trying to use any leverage he can to get Republicans to take it up and pass it through the Senate, where it's been stalled, but right now there's no indication the votes exist to do that. It looks like many of the things President Trump has wanted to do around vote-by-mail, at least for this upcoming November election, will not go into effect.
Dunne: Yeah, he's even holding up that major bipartisan housing bill, using it as leverage.
VanderHart: Yeah, very dramatically, he had scheduled a signing event for this big housing bill that both parties approved, and at the last minute, he canceled it, with demands that Republicans pass his vote-by-mail bill before he'll consider signing it.
Dunne: My last question for you: Obviously the president throws around the word 'fraud' a lot with regard to elections, and he uses it all the time, without providing evidence that fraud exists. I wanted to ask, in your conversations with people like Tobias Read and Attorney General Rayfield, what has Oregon found with regard to any fraud in our voting system, going back however far you want to go, in terms of elections?
VanderHart: Yeah, look, we should be clear about a couple of things. Voting fraud does exist. People get prosecuted for it, and it takes several forms. Sometimes someone makes a mistake; sometimes someone is actually trying to abuse the system. But every bit of data we have, and this isn't just from Read or Rayfield, you can talk to conservative groups active in this space and they'll acknowledge it too, shows that it's rare. We don't have proof that anything like the widespread voter fraud the president has repeatedly claimed, the kind that could change the course of an election, actually exists. There's no evidence that anything of that scale exists. I don't have the figures in front of me, but what we know about voter fraud, not just in Oregon but elsewhere, is that it's a very small portion of the vote, one that wouldn't have any role in changing the result of an election. The conspiracy theorists out there, and I guess the president is one of them, suggest there's undetected, mass fraud going on. There's just no evidence of it. I don't know what to say beyond that, but that's what Read would tell you, and I'd expect it's even what some conservative folks would acknowledge if you began to talk with them about it.
Dunne: He's Dirk VanderHart, politics reporter for OPB. Dirk, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on.
VanderHart: Yeah, it's my pleasure, Michael. Thanks.
Dunne: Hannah Bush, our Snowden intern for the summer. Hannah, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in and chatting.
Hannah Bush: Thanks for having me. I'm Hannah. As you said, I'm the Snowden intern. I just graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor's in journalism, so I'm really excited to be here and learn all I can.
Dunne: That sounds good. Where are you from?
Bush: I'm from up in Washington, Napavine.
Dunne: Where's that? Is that in the middle of the state?
Bush: Exactly halfway between Seattle and Portland.
Dunne: So what got you interested in coming to the U of O?
Bush: I toured the U of O, and I really liked the diversity in their programs. I thought there were so many different things I could do. I liked the greenery. Oregon's a beautiful state. It was still semi-close to home, but I could have my own space to spread my wings and fly, which I really enjoyed.
Dunne: Nice. And what got you interested in applying for the Snowden internship and coming here to KLCC?
Bush: I actually learned about the Snowden internship as a sophomore in college, but I didn't apply until I was a senior. It's a pretty notable internship at the U of O, and it's based on a lot of real-world experience. You work full time for 10 weeks, completely immersed wherever they send you, and that's really appealing. It's great experience. It's like being thrown into the deep end of something you've learned about and love, and learning all you can from just doing it. It's very different from a classroom, and I like the idea of getting my name behind some pieces and getting out there in the field.
Dunne: Had you done any radio production before you came here?
Bush: Absolutely none.
Dunne: All right. What interests you about doing a story for the radio?
Bush: I wasn't sure how I was going to like it when I first got here, but I've really enjoyed it. I feel like there's a lot you can do, and it's a really interesting way to connect with people. I think a lot of people discredit radio because they think it's not that popular, but I feel like you can hear your voice, and it's very connective to people. They can listen to it in their cars, download it, listen on their phones. Podcasts are very popular. It's a very personal way that people take in their media and their information, so it makes sense that news delivered that way can have a really big effect.
Dunne: Tell us about the first story you've worked on for us here at KLCC.
Bush: My first story was about the mattress recycling center here in Eugene, and that was very interesting. I was excited to get on that. There's a mattress recycling plant here in Eugene through St. Vinnie's and the Mattress Recycling Council. I didn't know that was a thing, and I got to learn all about it. That's what I love about journalism, the things you get to learn. I learned that this past year they recycled something like 130,000 mattresses. You don't think of a mattress as recyclable, but once you tear it apart, all the individual components can actually be recycled. If you think about how big a mattress is, and then think about 130,000 of them, that's a lot.
Dunne: That's a lot of mattresses. Is there a type of story you're interested in doing for us, be it a profile of a person, breaking news, investigative reporting? Is there something that really piques your interest?
Bush: I like a wide variety of topics. I'm really drawn to features, community pieces, arts and culture. I like to do pieces on things people are passionate about, whether that's their job or their hobby or a new initiative, what's the human spark behind what makes people tick.
Dunne: Okay. What has been the most interesting or unusual or quirky thing that's happened to you since you've been here, this is about your third week, I think?
Bush: I didn't realize how awkward it would be listening to myself.
Dunne: We all go through that. The voice sounds different in a recording. And once you leave here, what do you want to do?
Bush: I think at the core of it, I want to keep learning. I never want to be bored, and I really want to share what I learn with other people, because I think that transaction of information can help people make informed decisions. If what I learn can help people at all, I feel like that's a worthy cause.
Dunne: Awesome. She's Hannah Bush, a Snowden intern for us here at KLCC. Hannah, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming in.
Bush: Oh, thank you.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll meet the new emergency manager for Lane County. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon on the Record. Thanks for listening.
