Ahead of midterms, officials amp up defense against election fraud claims
By Kaylee Tornay / InvestigateWest
SALEM, OREGON — Bill Burgess has fielded more questions leading up to the 2022 midterms than in any election he can remember during his 17 years as clerk of Marion County, Oregon.
On a recent afternoon, he received three phone calls about cybersecurity. In each conversation, he worked to assuage callers’ concerns about the possibility that vote-tallying machines could be hacked to compromise the results of a race. His Salem office has been flooded with copy-and-pasted requests for vote-tally records from the 2020 election. While he doesn’t resent the curiosity, the level of suspicion and concern has alerted him to a shift in how his job is perceived, even in a purple county like Marion that split 49%-to-48% in favor of Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020.
Lately, as Burgess has thought about his role as a local elections official, a line from “Sink the Bismarck,” a song about the World War II hunt to destroy a mighty German warship in 1941, has come to mind. The line talks about the need to sink the warship “’cause the world depends on us.”
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While a current of distrust in American elections continues to swell, officials are taking new steps in 2022 to counter misinformation and educate the public on how they ensure elections are accurate and secure. Across the Pacific Northwest, state and county elections chiefs are rolling out new public education campaigns and inviting community members to see their work in action.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/ahead-of-midterms-officials-amp-up-defense-against-election-fraud-claims/
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