This story originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle and is used with permission.
Oregon’s state elections office has shut down its phone lines for the day because of a deluge of calls from out-of-state callers sharing misinformation about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who chose not to submit a statement to the state-issued Voters’ Pamphlet.
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, are on ballots that began arriving in Oregon voters’ mailboxes this week. They’re also included in a list of candidates on page 26 in the Voters’ Pamphlet but are marked with an asterisk because they didn’t submit a statement to be printed in the pamphlet.
The Secretary of State’s Office didn’t identify the callers but the omission of a Trump statement in the pamphlet caught the attention of right-wing misinformation spreaders, including the X account “Libs of TikTok,” which posted a video of someone flipping through the pamphlet that has been retweeted more than 11,000 times. Other social media accounts shared false claims that Trump and Vance were “removed from the election website,” calling it “election interference” and sharing the Elections Division phone number.
The online version of the Voters’ Pamphlet has a giant warning box that states that candidates are not required to file statements and only candidates who submitted statements will appear on the online menu — but all candidates will appear on the ballot.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office said the office is currently planning to close its phone lines just on Thursday, but that may change. Oregon voters with questions can contact the office by email at elections.sos@sos.oregon.gov or call and leave a voicemail. They can also get in touch with their own local county clerk’s office.
“Oregonians who need assistance will now have to wait because some individuals operating in bad faith are misleading people online,” Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “We need to do more as a country to discourage this kind of behavior. Spreading rumors and false claims of election interference does nothing to help Oregonians.”
Oregon lawmakers passed a law in 2022 to criminalize harassing election workers. Anyone who commits that crime can face up to 364 days in prison and a $6,250 fine.
For more of KLCC's coverage of the 2024 elections, visit our Elections page.
