Oregon has a Right to Farm law. But a right that bureaucrats can regulate into oblivion isn’t much of a right. Farmers shouldn’t need government permission to maintain a farm road, move dirt, or build a goat corral on land zoned for farming. This case shows why Oregon’s Right to Farm protections need more teeth. If it’s farmland, let farmers farm. oregonpropertyowners.org/aer…

I agree this is a big deal. That's why the Real Diehl is chiming in. 🙂 Oregon voters have been told for years that concerns about vote-by-mail are unfounded. Now Secretary of State Tobias Read wants more official drop boxes because he does not trust the Postal Service to get ballots from voters to county election officials on time. That is a chain-of-custody issue. Once a ballot leaves the voter’s hands, who has it, how it is transported, and when election officials receive it all matter. That is precisely the point election-integrity advocates have been making. The issue is not that every ballot traveling through the mail is compromised. The issue is whether Oregon’s election system should minimize the number of uncontrolled links between the voter and the official responsible for counting that ballot. Read’s solution - more secure, election-controlled drop boxes - implicitly concedes that the chain matters, and that there are vulnerabilities and weaknesses in that chain. Defenders will say this is only happening because of Trump. That answer gives the game away. If Oregon’s elections can be thrown into doubt by decisions in Washington, D.C., then a core part of our voting system has been handed to the federal government. A state that mails every ballot has chosen to make the U.S. Postal Service a link in the chain of custody. You cannot outsource that link and then pretend the chain is Oregon’s alone. Oregon should have an honest conversation about the vulnerabilities of vote-by-mail instead of dismissing anyone who raises them.

I agree this is a big deal. That's why the Real Diehl is chiming in. 🙂 Oregon voters have been told for years that concerns about vote-by-mail are unfounded. Now Secretary of State Tobias Read wants more official drop boxes because he does not trust the Postal Service to get ballots from voters to county election officials on time. That is a chain-of-custody issue. Once a ballot leaves the voter’s hands, who has it, how it is transported, and when election officials receive it all matter. That is precisely the point election-integrity advocates have been making. The issue is not that every ballot traveling through the mail is compromised. The issue is whether Oregon’s election system should minimize the number of uncontrolled links between the voter and the official responsible for counting that ballot. Read’s solution - more secure, election-controlled drop boxes - implicitly concedes that the chain matters, and that there are vulnerabilities and weaknesses in that chain. Defenders will say this is only happening because of Trump. That answer gives the game away. If Oregon’s elections can be thrown into doubt by decisions in Washington, D.C., then a core part of our voting system has been handed to the federal government. A state that mails every ballot has chosen to make the U.S. Postal Service a link in the chain of custody. You cannot outsource that link and then pretend the chain is Oregon’s alone. Oregon should have an honest conversation about the vulnerabilities of vote-by-mail instead of dismissing anyone who raises them.