“It’s not hard to understand why it’s so popular. Voting by mail is safe, fair and accurate. Most of all, it’s convenient.”
Those are the words of my good friend, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read.
Sadly, the ease and fairness of extended vote by mail in states like Oregon (and the higher turnout it engenders—75%) is exactly why Trump and his minions want to get rid of it. That, and that Putin told him to.
Given this latest attack by Trump, I knew there’d be no better person to talk to than Secretary of State Read, who oversees the state with the “gold standard” of vote-by-mail.
Listen to our conversation to hear:
why vote-by-mail works so well for voters (in states like Oregon), and how popular it is as a way to vote
how drop boxes have become such an easy and secure way for Oregonians to vote
why Trump is attacking it (“it’s about making it harder to vote”)
the deep damage Trump’s attack would render across the nation, including massive costs
and what Secretary of State Read and we can and must do to step up to this latest attack on voting rights. (“we will use every tool at our disposal to stop him”)
So watch our conversation above. I learned a lot, and you will too.
The bottom line is this: some states, like Oregon, know exactly how to make voting easier and convenient for voters, while keeping elections secure. The problem is not that we don’t know how to do this in the year 2025. It’s that some states and their leaders want to do it, and others just don’t—for all the same reasons Trump doesn't want convenient voting.
You can also watch Tobias raising the alarm here:
Also, be sure to follow
on Substack to keep up with his effort to protect voting rights and democracy across the country.
