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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 2018)
A4 Opinion Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, December 12, 2018 Oregon, where voting is easy nlike much of the U.S., last month’s mid-term election was ho-hum in Oregon — as in, few election snafus. The state Elections Divi- sion certifi ed Oregon’s results last week, while races in some states remained undecided amid recounts, court challenges and allega- tions of fraud. From Califor- nia to North Carolina, ques- tions have been raised about the security of absentee vot- ing by mail. In Oregon, 1,914,923 vot- ers cast ballots — a record for a mid-term election. Voting violations are rare, although a union-backed group, Our Oregon, did deliver 97 ballots to the Multnomah County elections offi ce a day after the election deadline. The state Elections Division is investigating. The ballots were col- lected from voters but not turned in by Defend Oregon, a political action commit- tee affi liated with Our Ore- gon. Groups collect ballots to ensure they are cast, but the practice — called ballot harvesting — has raised con- cerns in some states for fear that partisan groups might have discarded ballots, because of the voters’ demo- graphics, or altered unsealed ballots. Such concerns provide one more reason why Ore- gon should make its ballots postage-paid so more vot- ers mail them in, as Gov. Kate Brown proposed in her 2019-21 state budget recommendation. The reality is that the term “vote-by-mail” is inaccurate. Ballots are delivered to vot- ers by mail but not necessar- ily returned that way. A 2016 survey found the majority of voters in Oregon, California and Washington took their ballots to a county elections offi ce or offi cial drop-site. Oregon led the nation in launching all-mail vot- ing, and this year gained U the distinction of being the No. 1 state for ease of vot- ing. Political scientists from Northern Illinois Univer- sity, Jacksonville University and China’s Wuhan Univer- sity created a “Cost of Vot- ing Index” to analyze each state’s election laws. Following Oregon at No. 1 were Colorado, Califor- nia, North Dakota and Iowa. At the bottom: Mississippi, Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana and Texas. Oregon combines vote- by-mail with automatic voter registration when an Ore- gon resident and U.S. citi- zen visits the DMV to apply for, renew or replace a state driver license, permit or identifi cation card. Brown wants to expand that auto- matic registration to include citizen interactions at other state agencies. By the way, 16- and 17-year-olds can register but not vote until age 18. However, Oregon lags in other ways. A third of U.S. states allow voter reg- istration up through Elec- tion Day. North Dakota doesn’t even require regis- tration. Yet Oregon cuts off registration 20 days before an election, having ended same-day registration in the 1980s because follow- ers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh recruited homeless individuals around the U.S. to come to Wasco County and vote for the sect’s local candidates. Vote-by-mail in Oregon has been studied extensively. There is little evidence of fraud, although 48 individu- als were suspected of voting twice in the 2016 presiden- tial election, and six ballots were submitted from dead persons. Such allegations are unsettling in a state that prides itself on clean elec- tions. Yet they are tiny com- pared with the complaints of election fraud and vote sup- pression roiling other states. Accidents, fi res and mismatched socks By BRIANNA WALKER For the Blue Mountain Eagle “And my ... my ... ?” the lady quietly stammered from the hotel room threshold. My family, pulling our luggage, ducked as we walked down the sidewalk between the lady in the doorway and the man stepping out of his car. “... my house?” she fi nally asked. The man silently, solemnly shook his head. The lady covered her mouth and let out an anguished guttural sound as she stumbled back into the hotel room. Our luggage seemed loud and obnoxious as it bumped and clat- tered across the concrete cobble- stones. We kept our heads down and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as we made our way to our own room. It was not hard to miss that most of the cars in the parking lot had masks on the dashboards. Making a second trip to our vehi- cle for miscellaneous items, my husband ran into a man who was walking his two dogs. He had lost three homes in the fi re: his own, his daughter’s and a rental. Later in the pool, a lady told us that her grandmother’s house was leveled. The mood of the hotel was not one of boisterous vacationers and busy businessmen. Instead, it was as solemn as the red smoke horizon. Driving down the highway, charred ground burned all the way to the asphalt. Smoke curled lazily up from blackened fence posts as we continued south through the smoky city of Chico. Police blocked exits off all the roads heading in the direction of the active fi re. I glanced toward the red sky. This was our annual trip south to pick up persimmons, citrus and nuts. As it is close to our anniver- sary, we usually try to combine it with a fun activity or two — it’s a fun trip that the whole family looks forward to. But this year was dif- ferent — right from the beginning. We left in a rush, unable to fi nd matching socks, and forgetting our coats entirely. No time to go back, we’d just make do. Then out in the middle of central Oregon — about the time that radio signals are lost and cell phone service is sketchy at best — there was a little smell. The most terrible little smell — that you ever did smell. (OK, I’ve been singing too many kid songs lately.) Really, it was a bad smell. “Oh, Bug,” I sighed, twist- ing around to see in the back seat. “Why didn’t you tell us you needed to stop?” “I clean, Mommy,” he said pinching his nose as he looked at me. My nose twitched, and I tried to keep my irritation in check. An accident is one thing, but a blatant lie? Ugh. I sat forward in my chair again and looked at my husband, “I guess we’ll have to pull over.” We went around corner after corner with not a pullout in sight. The traffi c was traveling on at a pretty decent clip, and my husband felt the shoulder was too narrow to pull off safely — especially after having just attended the funeral of his friend who was hit while changing a tire. He fi nally spotted a wide area and stopped. I got the wipes while my hus- band laid down our son on a blan- ket on the tailgate. The smell said this was going to be a disaster. I was surprised to see nothing had escaped his jeans. I took off his boots and carefully pulled off his pants. They were clean! He was clean! Just like he had said. My husband and I were both stunned. To say the smell was pervasively rank wouldn’t have done a good enough job of describing how hor- rible it had been. We redressed our toddler and were quickly back out on the road, and had it not been for what hap- pened next, we probably would never have remembered the incident. As we rounded the next a cor- ner, dust billowed across the road, and there were cars on the shoulder of the road and some in the middle. An oncoming semi-truck swerved and a black dog darted through the traffi c. “What’s going on?” I wondered aloud. “I think it’s rubberneckers for the accident,” my husband said, motioning to the car upside down on the side of the road. The car’s tires were still spinning and a smoke billowed from the over- turned engine. It took a second before we recognized the vehicle we’d been following before we pulled off for the mysterious smell. Suddenly an arm fl ung out of the window. We pulled over, and my husband and another couple helped the woman out of the wreck. She was dazed but alive, crying inco- herently for her two dogs — we looked ‘til dark, but unfortunately, we only found one. Back on the road, neither of us felt talkative — both of us real- izing that had we not stopped to change “the most terrible little smell” that it would have been very diffi cult to avoid being in that acci- dent. While telling the story to my cousin the next day, she laughed, “I guess angels really know how to let one out!” A very bad accident and a very bad fi re — just on the cursory edge of each. Not enough to feel the pain that the victims felt, but touched enough by it that it made me feel an enormous gratitude for my life, my family and even our stinky guardian angels! Be thankful for today. My socks may not match — but my feet are warm. Brianna Walker occasionally writes about the Farmer’s Fate for the Blue Mountain Eagle. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letter: Attend objection meetings WHERE TO WRITE GRANT COUNTY • Grant County Courthouse — 201 S. Humbolt St., Suite 280, Canyon City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0059. Fax: 541-575-2248. • Canyon City — P.O. Box 276, Canyon City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0509. Fax: 541-575-0515. Email: tocc1862@ centurylink.net. • Dayville — P.O. Box 321, Dayville 97825. Phone: 541-987-2188. Fax: 541- 987-2187. Email:dville@ortelco.net • John Day — 450 E. Main St, John Day, 97845. Phone: 541-575-0028. Fax: 541-575-1721. Email: cityjd@ centurytel.net. Blue Mountain EAGLE Published every Wednesday by To the Editor: I wanted to say how much I appreciated everyone that attended fi rst set of meetings on the Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision. It was great to see everyone who had traveled from around the West to have their objections heard or to support those who were speaking out about the plan. I was impressed with the care each of you took to present your objections to Mr. French and his team, but even more, I was awe struck at the control each of you team from D.C. stated we would hear back from them sometime at the end of January, and we should expect additional meetings some- time in March to see what the next steps would be. If the meetings are held in March it will be paramount that every objector attend the meetings and participate in the process. I ask each of you that know you are an objector to follow Forest Access For All on Facebook to get cur- rent information on the process and how to participate. Again, I appreciate each of you that participated. John D. George Bates L ETTERS POLICY: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues. Brevity is good, but longer letters will be asked to be contained to 350 words. No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person. No thank- you letters. Submissions to this page become property of the Eagle. The Eagle reserves the right to edit letters for length and for content. Letters must be original and signed by the writer. Anonymous letters will not be printed. Writers should include a telephone number so they can be reached for questions. We must limit all contributors to one letter per person per month. Deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. Send letters to editor@bmeagle.com, or Blue Mountain Eagle, 195 N. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845; or fax to 541-575-1244. 1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION RATES (including online access) Grant County’s Weekly Newspaper Publisher............ ......................................Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com Editor & General Manager ...............Sean Hart, editor@bmeagle.com Reporter ...................................................Richard Hanners, rick@bmeagle.com Community News .................................Angel Carpenter, angel@bmeagle.com Sports ........................................................Angel Carpenter, angel@bmeagle.com Marketing Rep .......................................Kim Kell, ads@bmeagle.com Administrative Assistant ..................Makenna Adair, offi ce@bmeagle.com Offi ce Assistant .....................................Alixandra Hand, offi ce@bmeagle.com MEMBER OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION showed in a matter that is very dear to each of our hearts and that impacts our ability to sustain our families in northeastern Oregon. While open access to our moun- tains seems to be such a simple concept when it comes to subsis- tence use, it eludes those that make decisions who have never had to worry about heating their homes with fi rewood or had to extract food that supplements our families through the winter. While we saw a solid turnout of objectors in the meetings from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, I fear a great deal of those who objected missed out on these fi rst meetings and did not have their voices heard. The Grant County .........................................$40 Everywhere else in U.S. .......................$51 Outside Continental U.S. ....................$60 Online: BlueMountainEagle.com Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery Periodicals Postage Paid at John Day and additional mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER send address changes to: Blue Mountain Eagle 195 N. Canyon Blvd. John Day, OR 97845-1187 USPS 226-340 Phone: 541-575-0710 Copyright © 2018 Blue Mountain Eagle All rights reserved. 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