FROM PAGE ONE
Saturday, april 16, 2022
tHE OBSErVEr — A7
SURVEY
Continued from Page A1
Republican voters believed
illegal voting occurred in
Oregon and throughout the
country.
Secretary of State
Shemia Fagan told the Cap-
ital Chronicle the results
of both surveys showed
that she has a lot of work
to do to rebuild trust with
Oregonians.
“Oregon’s elections are
safe, secure
and acces-
sible,” she
said. “It’s not
for any actual
failing of
the election
system that
Fagan
trust has been
eroded. It’s unfortunate that
it’s really false informa-
tion about our elections that
eroded people’s trust in the
way that we do elections
and in our democracy.”
As Fagan and other elec-
tion officials throughout
Oregon and the U.S. seek
to restore trust in the elec-
tion system during the 2022
elections, they face a polit-
ical reality that some candi-
dates believe they’ll benefit
from sowing doubt.
One leading Republican
candidate for governor,
Sandy Mayor
Stan Pulliam,
insists the
2020 election
was fraudu-
lent. He pre-
viously told
the Capital
Pulliam
Chronicle he
also had doubts about Ore-
gon’s 20-year history of
running elections by mail,
as only one Republican can-
didate has won statewide
since Oregon began run-
ning elections by mail in
2000.
A month ahead of the
primary election, Pul-
liam has added just one
policy proposal to his web-
site: a plan to end auto-
matic voter registration, ban
anyone other than a voter
from returning a ballot and
require post-election audits,
which are already required
by state law.
“Nobody’s doing Ore-
gonians a service by
destroying trust in our elec-
tion system, particularly the
candidates who are trying
to be elected in that very
system,” Fagan said.
More faith in elections
than other states
While a significant per-
centage of Oregon voters,
Win McNamee/Getty Images, File
On Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory, hundreds of protesters who were in D.C. for the “Save America”
rally violently breached the U.S. Capitol building, making it as far as the Senate chamber, killing one Capitol police officer, and injuring more
than 140 others. The insurrectionists, composed largely of pro-Trump supporters, caused roughly $1.5 million in damages.
alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
A Union County ballot drop box stands outside Elgin City Hall on
Thursday, April 29, 2021. About one in five Oregon voters, and nearly
half of Republicans, believe fraud changed the 2020 election results,
a 2022 survey found.
and particularly Oregon
Republicans, doubt the
integrity of the election
system, Oregonians still
have more faith in the
state’s election than voters
nationally or in states that
have been the epicenter of
post-2020 election fraud
claims.
Monmouth University
has conducted national polls
about election fraud beliefs
six times since November
2020, finding each time
that 32% of respondents
believed Biden won because
of fraud. But those polls
consistently found that a
majority of Republicans
believed Biden’s election
was fraudulent — 61% of
Republicans in a January
2022 survey and 73% in a
November 2021 survey told
Monmouth pollsters that
Biden’s election was due to
fraud.
In Arizona, where a
lengthy “audit” of the 2020
presidential and Senate
races conducted by outside
firms found no evidence
of fraud, one of the state’s
leading polling firms found
that about 42% of voters
— and more than 78% of
Republicans — believed
significant voter fraud com-
promised the integrity of
the election. Republican
pollsters and consultants
there have warned that
championing false claims
of voter fraud might help in
a GOP primary but doom
candidates in statewide
races.
Regular surveys of Wis-
consin voters from the Mar-
quette Law School similarly
found that nearly one-third
of all voters weren’t con-
fident in the 2020 elec-
tion results. Republicans
gained a little more confi-
dence in Wisconsin elec-
tions between August 2021
and the most recent survey
in February, but more than
60% of them still don’t trust
their state election results.
Fagan attributed Ore-
gon’s higher confidence in
elections to the state’s his-
tory of holding mail elec-
tions supervised by both
Democratic and Repub-
lican officials. She noted
that her immediate prede-
cessors, Bev Clarno and
Dennis Richardson, were
both Republicans who pro-
moted the state’s vote-by-
mail system.
“While some Orego-
nians lost trust in our elec-
tions in 2020, it wasn’t like
Arizona or Michigan where
there was really a concerted
effort to erode trust in our
democracy,” she said. “It’s
really because of a national
conversation about vote-by-
mail and the false things the
former president was saying
about vote-by-mail that
really caused that erosion of
trust.”
Prebunking
However, Fagan said,
2022 could be a more dif-
ficult election in Oregon.
This year is the first under
a new law that requires
ballots be counted as long
as they’re postmarked by
Election Day and arrive
within the next week. That
means Oregonians may not
have a clear idea of who’s
winning an election, or
even how many votes are
left to count, as they tra-
ditionally have on election
night.
And pundits expect
closer elections, at least in
some races, than Oregon
has seen in past years. The
state will likely have a
three-way race for governor
in the general election, and
crowded primaries in mul-
tiple races could mean a
very small number of votes
decide elections.
“Nobody should have
been surprised when Joe
Biden won Oregon,” Fagan
said. “But in 2022, there
could be a lot closer races.
We could see more sophis-
ticated attacks.”
To that end, Fagan and
election officials around
the state are focused on
what they call prebunking,
as opposed to reacting to
fraud claims and trying
to debunk them after they
spread. The office has
$370,000 recently appro-
priated by the Legislature
for statewide public ser-
vice announcements and
responses to election mis-
information, and it’s using
$135,000 for two animated
videos, radio spots and ads
about the postmark law and
closed primaries.
The first video, featuring
an excited cartoon blob
and googly eyes on Oregon
landmarks, explains where
to register to vote and that
primaries are closed. Fagan
said that idea came from a
conversation with county
clerks, who said they com-
monly field questions from
voters who don’t under-
stand why their spouse has
a different ballot or why
they can’t vote for a can-
didate whose ads they
watched.
Every Oregon voter will
receive a ballot in May, but
only Republicans or Dem-
ocrats get to vote for can-
didates running in par-
tisan primaries for offices
including the governor,
Congress and the Legisla-
ture. More than 1.2 million
voters, about 41% of the
electorate, will only get to
vote in nonpartisan races
such as the commissioner
of the state Bureau of Labor
and Industries and judgess.
Voters have until April
26 to register to vote or
switch parties to vote in the
primary election. It takes
less than three minutes to
register online, a point the
Secretary of State’s Office
keeps making in TikTok
videos with guest appear-
ances from Fagan’s dog, the
Secreterrier of State.
The office also plans
to release public service
announcements about the
postmark law before the
May election. The animated
videos will direct people to
the secretary of state’s web-
site through OregonVotes.
gov, but they don’t include
references to the office or
Fagan, which she described
as a conscious choice. For
some voters, a Democratic
secretary of state isn’t a
trusted source.
“I have enough humility
to recognize I’m not the
best messenger for all of
this, and so I need to step
back when appropriate and
let other people take what
we know is an accurate
message,” she said.
HIRING
Continued from Page A1
terms of retirements and things
like that in the last five to eight
years, but it’s just really chal-
lenging to recruit and make
sure that we work really hard
to keep those standards where
we need them to be so that we
can provide the service that
the community deserves,” Bell
told the council during the
Wednesday, April 6, meeting.
The La Grande Fire Depart-
ment may have help on the
way soon, following roughly
seven months of lacking a fire-
fighter/paramedic position.
A firefighter/EMT role also
recently opened after a retire-
ment, and the department is
in the process of testing eight
individuals to potentially fill
the void.
“The challenge has been the
paramedic piece,” Cornford
said. “Paramedics are in short
supply, so we haven’t had a lot
of people apply.”
The department has faced
difficulties in hiring fire-
fighters who are qualified
as paramedics, which Corn-
ford said is a statewide trend.
To help alleviate the burden,
the city of La Grande passed
a memorandum of under-
standing with the Local 924
Chapter of the International
Association of Firefighters
that would allow for new
hires to undertake paramedic
training while working for
the department as a condi-
tion of employment.
One current staff member
of the department previ-
ously completed the training,
receiving high marks in the
program. Cornford noted that
the process takes roughly
two years, so the department
alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
Recreational vehicles sit behind The Historic
Union Hotel on Nov. 17, 2021. The city in March
2022 approved a 5% lodging tax that will affect
the hotel and the adjacent RV park.
LODGING
Continued from Page A1
alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
La Grande Police Chief Gary Bell on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, told the city council the department still has three open
officer positions. Bell said the department has made one conditional offer and is evaluating a few other candidates.
would look to stagger the
training in order to still have
staff on hand. Even so, a siz-
able portion of
the training is
online, allowing
for the employee
to continue
working regular
shifts.
Bell
“It’s a good
way to do it, but
we also don’t want to do that
until they’re a good portion
of the way through their first
year learning the ins and outs
of the department and fire-
fighting in general,” he said.
While recent hiring trends
resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic have impacted nearly
every job market, Cornford
stated that the overall need for
paramedics in the state and La
Grande’s loca-
tion in rural
Oregon have been
two key chal-
lenges in hiring
paramedics.
“That puts
Cornford
us in the market
for paramedics
alongside bigger entities that
are more likely to pay better,”
he said. “There’s also the
challenges of being in rural
Oregon. Some people see that
as a benefit, which I myself
would say, but a lot of people
sometimes see that as not an
ideal place to live.”
As Cornford and the fire
department sustain efforts to
get the staff back to full force
soon, the chief stated how cru-
cial the current staff has been
in keeping operations at the
expected high quality.
“What has gotten us
through it is the ability of the
people here to work a lot of
extra hours. They have done
a fantastic job keeping us up,”
Cornford said. “There is a lot
of time at the fire station run-
ning a lot calls. I just put that
all back on them, they’ve done
a great job covering. Most
people would probably be
hard-pressed to say we’re short
staffed because when they call,
we respond.”
The remaining revenue could go to
the city’s general fund or toward tourism.
Wiggins said he anticipates the city
council will opt to spend the money on
tourism.
At least two cities in Union County —
La Grande and Elgin — have transient
lodging taxes. In addition, everyone pro-
viding overnight lodging in Union County
must pay a 3% county transient room tax
and a state transient room tax. The state
tax is 1.5%, according to the Oregon
Department of Revenue’s website.
Morden said people who are traveling
as part of their work are finding it difficult
to stay in hotels and motels because their
per diem has not been raised even though
there is rampant inflation.
He said the tax could ultimately result
in him converting the Union Hotel into an
apartment-only complex.
“It puts me on the path to making it all
apartments,” he said.
For a number of months he has been
converting the Union Hotel’s third floor,
which had been closed for years, into
apartments.
Morden said he would make less
money with an apartment-only complex
but it would be less work to operate than
a hotel.