WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021 | SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
Calls for audit inundate clerks
2020 election demands
becoming more
frequent, threatening
Bill Poehler Salem Statesman Journal | USA
TODAY NETWORK
Eleven months after the 2020 elec-
tion, county clerks in Oregon are getting
a new round of calls and emails disput-
ing the results.
Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess
said the requests for audits and can-
vasses of election results in the county
have been coming since June. But he
said they’ve picked up in the past few
weeks following an audit of a county’s
election results in Arizona.
“People, they’ll come and they’ll start
asking the question and then they won’t
wait for an answer,” Burgess said.
“They’ll start railing away and some-
times with a lot of obscenity and all,
too.”
In the 2020 presidential election,
voters in Marion County swung to Dem-
ocrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald
Trump by 49.2% to 48%, a margin of
1,870 votes out of 164,308. That was a re-
versal from the 2016 election when
Trump carried the county.
Burgess said the calls and emails
have also become threatening, includ-
ing some he’s forwarded to the FBI in the
past few weeks. He said some of his
election staff don’t want their photo tak-
Voters drop off
their ballots on
election day at a
drive-thru
location outside
the Marion
County
Courthouse in
May. ABIGAIL
DOLLINS/STATESMAN
JOURNAL
en for fear of being tracked.
“It seems to go in waves,” he said.
“Sometimes you can’t tell if these are di-
rect threats or not.”
Oregon’s recount process
A person who identified themselves
See COUNTIES, Page 3A
CELEBRATING FALL
Best spots
in Mid-Valley
to watch the
leaves turn
Calls grow for
citizen
commission to
redraw maps
Connor Radnovich Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Trees display leaves in bright reds and oranges along Vista Avenue SE. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STATESMAN JOURNAL
Zach Urness Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Oregon’s trees are transforming into stationary fireworks
for the fall color season.
In the Mid-Valley, leaves often begin to turn in early Sep-
tember, peak in mid-October and linger until early Novem-
ber.
As trees begin to shut down food production in leaves
each fall, the cholorophyll breaks down and the green color
disappears, leaving behind yellow and orange hues. Leaves
on trees at higher elevations will be the first to change colors,
while coastal areas are often last.
The color variety and vibrancy varies from year to year,
depending on weather conditions.
“A succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp but not
freezing nights seems to bring about the most spectacular
color displays,” according to the National Forest Service
website.
A late spring or severe summer drought can delay the on-
set of fall color by a few weeks, according to the Forest Ser-
vice.
A warm period during fall can dim the colors’ intensity.
A warm, wet spring and favorable summer weather fol-
lowed by warm, sunny fall days with cool nights make the
most brilliant autumn colors.
Here are 20 places in and around the Willamette Valley to
see the colors.
Multiple people helped put together this list, but one great
resource for potential leaf-peepers is Travel Lane County and
Oregon Fall Foliage Facebook page.
South Falls at Silver Falls State Park has
popped with fall colors in prior years. PROVIDED
BY JOE JOHNSTON
Salem
There are numerous places to find fall color
in the Capital City. Here’s a list of favorites put
together by folks with Salem City Parks and
Travel Salem.
Minto-Brown Island Park
Salem’s largest park and trails system is
starting to show some good colors, with the
See FALL, Page 4A
State’s ‘At-A-Glance’ report cards
display impacts of pandemic
Dianne Lugo Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
data.
“We all know that we went through and we
are in the midst of a global pandemic and due to
that pandemic we’ve had an impact on in-per-
son instruction with a lot of the state moving to
conference distance learning for much of the
year,” Jon Wiens, director of Accountability and
Reporting at ODE, said. “So there’s a lot of cau-
tions with the data that we have this year.”
Oregon’s ‘At-A-Glance’ school and district report cards
have been released by the Oregon Department of Education.
The annual publication required by law is designed to in-
form parents, caregivers, communities and educators. It is
also designed to initiate discussions on areas of improve-
ment for schools and districts, according to the ODE.
The data shows schools across the Mid-Valley are strug-
gling to help students graduate within four years, and that’s Losing students, adding staff
exacerbated for Latino students and students struggling
There were 38,809 students enrolled in Sa-
with homelessness.
ODE warned that due to the pandemic-related impact on lem-Keizer Public Schools last school year, ac-
in-person learning, the data looks different this year. Simi- cording to this year’s report. Student enroll-
lar to 2019-2020’s report, this year’s profiles do not include
statewide assessments data, class size data or attendance See REPORT CARDS, Page 4A
Vol. 140, No. 43
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QEAJAB-07403y
In the waning hours of last month’s special legis-
lative session on redistricting, lawmakers from both
sides of the aisle declared this should be the last time
elected representatives are responsible for drawing
these maps.
The session was defined by partisan controversy:
House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, changed the
makeup of a redistricting committee to favor Demo-
crats, sparking a House Republican boycott, and the
congressional map itself skewed Democratic, ac-
cording to independent analyses.
The top alternative is an independent redistrict-
ing commission, where members of the public are
selected to draw new congressional and legislative
district maps once per decade after the new census.
Experts and political analysts warn such commis-
sions aren’t guaranteed to result in fairer maps and
could be difficult to establish in Oregon.
Those who oppose a redistricting commission say
commissioners would not be accountable to the peo-
ple, nor would they be as representative of the state
as the 90-member legislative body.
But those who support a commission say this past
session just further demonstrated why the state
needs to have a new system.
Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, said redistricting
fights and the perceived or actual partisan bias of the
maps damage the public’s trust in the state’s politi-
cal systems.
“The events of the last week add to a mounting
pile of evidence that we should not be creating the
districts in which we and our allies and friends might
be running in the future,” he said.
House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, R-
Canby, called on Oregonians to vote in support of the
creation of an independent redistricting commis-
sion should the measure make it to the ballot.
“Oregonians will only get the fair maps they de-
serve, free of partisan influence, by supporting an
independent redistricting commission in the next
election,” Drazan said. “Politicians should not be
drawing their own political lines.”
Independent analyses of the newly drawn con-
gressional districts indicate two are safe Democrat
seats, one is a safe Republican seat, two lean Demo-
crat and one is a relative toss-up.
However, that toss-up (Congressional District 5)
contains the city of Bend, which has shifted left in
recent decades and is growing rapidly, meaning the
district could soon turn into a safe Democratic seat.
Oregon political analyst Jim Moore said that
based on voter registration and trends, Democrats
“should win four of the six seats” for the state to have
a fair congressional delegation, but not five.
Even so, that doesn’t mean a court challenge will
prove successful.
“Showing that it’s intentional and violates Oregon
law is going to be really tough to do,” Moore said.
Oregon has tended to find itself on the cutting
edge of elections innovations — from vote-by-mail
to automatic voter registration. Moore said lawmak-
ers have not been as eager on this issue.
Fourteen other states have taken the responsibil-
ity of redistricting out of the hands of lawmakers and
given it to a commission.
So while Moore said there is “zero chance” of a bill
passing the Legislature to create an independent re-
districting commission, getting it on the ballot via an
initiative petition could also prove difficult.
“We’ve seen it time and time again: the voters
have a very short attention span on this,” Moore said.
Coalition trying to get issue on ballot
The current effort to bring an independent redis-
tricting commission to the state is being led by Peo-
ple Not Politicians, a coalition which includes the
Oregon Farm Bureau, League of Women Voters, Eu-
gene-Springfield NAACP and Independent Party of
Oregon.
Initiative Petition 34 would create a Citizens Re-
districting Commission with 12 members, six select-
See MAPS, Page 3A