Oregon election officials to begin purging rolls of inactive voters

As Oregon kicks off a general election year, Secretary of State Tobias Read is taking what he says is the overdue step of cleaning up the state’s voter rolls.

That process could lead to the cancellation of as many as 800,000 registrations. That’s the number of voters Read says are currently classified as “inactive” on the voter rolls. To be clear, inactive voters do not receive ballots, but their names remain on the rolls.

The cleanup comes as Oregon’s first-in-the-nation vote-by-mail system is under intense scrutiny. President Donald Trump, who blamed mail-in ballots, among other bogeymen, for his defeat in 2020, has amplified historical criticism of Oregon’s system.

Trump’s Department of Justice has sued Read’s office, seeking information about Oregon voters (that litigation is pending in U.S. District Court in Eugene). Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington, D.C., foundation, sued Read’s predecessor, LaVonne Griffin-Valade, in 2024, seeking a cleanup of voter rolls (that litigation is also pending). And currently, a group seeking to end vote by mail at the ballot is suing to overturn results of a transit district election in Douglas County and hoping to use that case to discredit mail ballots.


https://www.sweethomenews.com/oregon-election-officials-to-begin-purging-rolls-of-inactive-voters/