STATE
THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2021
THE OBSERVER — 9A
Oregon House OKs election- New wolf killing laws prompt
push to revive protections
day postmark for ballots
ters, using night-vision
scopes and setting lethal
snares that some consider
inhumane.
Wolves in the region
lost federal endangered
protections in 2011 under
an act of Congress after
the species had rebounded
from widespread extermi-
nation last century.
Hundreds of wolves
are now killed annually
by hunters and trappers
in Montana, Idaho and
Wyoming. Yet the pop-
ulation remains strong
— more than 3,000 ani-
mals, according to wild-
life offi cials — because
the wolves breed so suc-
cessfully and can roam
huge areas of wild land
in the sparsely populated
Northern Rockies.
Supporters of restoring
protections say the new
laws will tip the scales
and drive down wolf num-
bers to unsustainable
levels, while also threat-
ening packs in Wyoming
By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press
By PETER WONG
BILLINGS, Mont. —
Wildlife advocates pressed
the Biden administration
on Wednesday, May 26, to
revive federal protections
for gray wolves across the
Northern Rockies after
Republicans-backed laws
in Idaho and Montana
made it much easier to kill
the predators.
The Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity, Humane
Society and Sierra Club
fi led a legal petition asking
Interior Secretary Deb Haa-
land to use her authority to
return thousands of wolves
in the region to protection
under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act.
Republican lawmakers
in Idaho and Montana
pushed through legisla-
tion in recent weeks that
would allow hunters and
trappers to kill unlimited
numbers of wolves using
tactics such as shooting
from ATVs and helicop-
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon, the
fi rst state to conduct all
elections by mail, would
join the ranks of states
accepting ballots post-
marked by election day
under a bill that has cleared
the Oregon House.
House Bill 3291 was
approved on a 39-21 vote
Monday, May 24, and goes
to the Senate.
The bill would align
Oregon with 17 states —
including Washington, Cal-
ifornia and Nevada — that
allow ballots to count if
they are postmarked by
election day. Four other
states count ballots if they
are postmarked the day
before the election. Oregon
is among the states that
have required ballots to be
in the hands of county elec-
tions offi ces by the close of
election day.
Under the bill, ballots
would have to arrive in
county elections offi ces no
later than seven days after
the election if they are to
count. States that allow
election-day postmarks
range from three to 20 days.
Rep. Dan Rayfi eld, a
Democrat from Corvallis
and the bill’s fl oor manager,
said about 150 voters in
Marion County cast ballots
in last year’s general elec-
tion, but they did not count
Pamplin Media Group, File
Oregon, the fi rst state to conduct all elections by mail, would join the
ranks of states accepting ballots postmarked by election day under a
bill that has cleared the Oregon House.
because they were received
after election day.
He said the concept of
election-day postmarks has
been on the table for two
decades.
Rep. Greg Smith, a
Republican from Heppner
who then was in his fi rst
term, voted for it in 2001
and now. The only other
Republican who voted for
it Monday was Rep. Ron
Noble of McMinnville. The
other 21 Republicans voted
against it.
“It creates another level
of complexity in a system
that is problematic,” House
Republican Leader Chris-
tine Drazan of Canby said.
“A deadline is a deadline is
a deadline.”
Drazan also said the U.S.
Postal Service has shifted
most of its mail processing
to Portland in the two
decades since the 2001 vote.
She also questioned
a provision that allows a
ballot to be counted even if
the postmark is unclear.
Rayfi eld said that when a
voter signs the return enve-
lope containing a ballot,
it will include a statement
that the ballot was mailed
on or before election day. If
a voter does otherwise, it is
considered perjury, a Class
C felony punishable by a
maximum fi ne of $125,000
and fi ve years in prison.
Secretary of State
Shemia Fagan, the state’s
chief elections offi cer,
endorsed an election-day
deadline in testimony to the
House Rules Committee on
Feb. 11.
and other nearby states
that have interconnected
populations.
They argue the changes
violated the terms that
allowed state manage-
ment of wolves, and want
Haaland to act before the
looser hunting rules start
going into eff ect in Idaho
on July 1.
“The (U.S. Fish and
Wildlife) Service was
very clear that a change
in state law that allowed
for unregulated, unlim-
ited take of wolves would
set off the alarm,” said
attorney Nicholas Arrivo
with the Humane Society
of the United States. “This
is essentially an attempt to
push the population down
to the very minimum.”
Wednesday’s petition
seeks to restore protec-
tions across all or por-
tions of at least six states
— Montana, Idaho, Wyo-
ming, eastern Washington,
eastern Oregon and a small
area of Northern Utah.
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