Bradbury Say's "Don't Worry"

"We have seen absolutely no widespread evidence of non-citizens voting or attempting to vote in Oregon elections."

So you can rest assured because Anne Mertens told you so.

Check out the rest of the response from Bradbury's chief of communications. This was forwarded to us by an interested NWR reader. So props go to him. Check her response and tell me that the Oregon SoS is really even worried about fraudulent voters. Now just let someone look cross eyed while signing an initiative petition. Then they will track you down, indict you, scare you, attempt to convict you and generally attempt to remove all of your rights to petition your government. Because those pesky signature gatherers are the REAL problem. The audacity of these folks.

Dear Mr. *****,

DMV does not track citizenship. The State Legislature has regularlyinstructed DMV not to check citizenship. Thus, a driver's license issimply a permit to drive, it is not proof of citizenship, and
nobody ever claimed that it was proof of citizenship. DMV is well aware of this. DMV is merely following the law in verifying identity, not legalstatus, and any quarrel with that issue may be taken up with the state legislature.

DMV is also required by federal law to make voter registration cardsavailable at all DMV offices at the time that a person obtains a drivers license (the "motor voter" law). DMV is merely following the law in making voter registration cards available, and any quarrel with that issue may be take up with Congress.

A driver's license does not equal a valid voter registration. (Is that made clear to people signing up at the DMV?)

The voter registration card does ask if the registrant is a citizen. It is a Class C felony to lie on this form. (Oh now that makes us feel better. After all a felon would never lie on a government form. whew..) Such a felony would also subject the registrant to deportation, if the registrant was not a citizen. This form also provides a government agency with all of the registrants personal information, such as name and address, which makes it easy for any government agency to find the registrant. We find it extremely unlikely that a non-citizen would take such a huge risk for minimal (to them) benefit of voting.

We have seen absolutely no wide spread evidence of non-citizens votingor attempting to vote in Oregon elections. There have been two prosecutions for non-citizen voting in recent memory (one was a British citizen who voted on purpose, one was a Vietnamese citizen who married an
American and thought that gave her citizenship). We have investigated every claim of non-citizen voting, and have seen no hard evidence that non-citizen voting is a problem. We have heard many politicians claim that non-citizen voting is a problem, but they have been unable to provide any hard evidence. Without any hard evidence,there is no reason (and it would be a
waste of public resources) for us to address this so-called problem. (Yet it is not a waste of public resources to make up new rules restricting the rights of citizens to place initiatives on the ballot and then track people down based on those new rules? BTW Mr. Bradbury I have heard that the unions contract signature gatherer has been paying people by the signature. We won't hold our breath that you will actually hunt them down. We know you owe them too much.)

Best,

Anne Martens
Chief of Communications
Oregon Secretary of State