WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A7
LOCAL NEWS
Cost per vote in race? A cup of coffee
Commissioner
hopefuls spent
about $2 per vote
in May primary
By PHIL WRIGHT
STAFF WRITER
The five candidates run-
ning in the primary for
Umatilla County commis-
sioner seats spent about as
much per vote cast as a cup
of coffee.
Tom Bailor, Rick Pullen
and incumbent George Mur-
dock ran for Position 1 and
received a total of 11,469
votes, according to unoffi-
cial elections results, while
John Shafer and incum-
bent Larry Givens received
11,555 votes combined in
the Position 2 race. The five
spent about $46,700 on their
campaigns and received a
total of 23,024 votes.
That pencils out to a tick
more than $2 per vote across
the board, with more than
three times as much spent in
the two-way race as in the
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Ballots await counting in Umatilla County. Campaign
spending reports show some interesting numbers. .
other.
Bailor, Murdock, Givens
and Shafer spent $45,399.80
collectively on their cam-
paigns, according to ORE-
STAR, the Oregon Secretary
of State’s public website for
campaign finance activity.
Pullen said he spent about
$1,300.
Oregon election law
requires political commit-
tees to maintain records of
all contributions and expen-
ditures, but committees only
file those transactions with
ORESTAR if they expect to
receive or spend more than
$3,500 for a calendar year.
“It all comes down to
budgeting,” Pullen said.
“We said we were going to
stay under that threshold,
and I think we did pretty
well with that.”
Pullen won 3,506 votes
at a cost of about 37 cents
each. Bailor’s 2,735 votes
cost about 61 cents each.
And Murdock’s 5,228 votes
cost 96 cents apiece.
Givens spent $16,881 and
won 5,484 votes, so $3.08
per vote. Shafer, the mayor
of Athena, spent $21,827
and won 6,071 votes, just
shy of $3.60 per vote.
Shafer won, and Mur-
dock and Pullen will face-
off in the November general
election.
Spending in the race for
the open circuit court seat
of the 6th Judicial District
encompassing Umatilla and
Morrow counties mirrored
the toe-to-toe between Sha-
fer and Givens.
Michael
Breiling
received 4,907 votes and
spent $20,685. That’s $4.22
per vote.
Robert “Rob” Collins
defeated Breiling, receiv-
ing 7,593 votes. He spent
$16,130, so $2.12 per vote.
The campaigns for com-
missioner and judge spent
$11,827 with local news-
papers for print and online
advertising (The East Ore-
gonian took in more than
$6,500), and more than
$11,930 for signs, but-
tons and the like. But they
pumped almost $20,500
into local radio stations.
Breiling alone accounted for
nearly $11,000 in broadcast
advertising.
Expenditures in ORE-
STAR, however, do not
account for where all cam-
paign money goes. Charles
Danforth of Milton-Freewa-
ter gave $8,262 in-kind for
radio ads to Shafer’s cam-
paign. Likewise, Heidi Van
Kirk gave $2,549 in-kind
for online ads, signs and
more to help the campaign
of Breiling, her husband.
Those are campaign contri-
butions, not expenses, but
the goal is the same: get
votes.
Debra Royal, chief of
staff for Secretary of State
Dennis Richardson, said the
candidates input all their
own financial information
into ORESTAR, so any mis-
takes are theirs. Commit-
tees now have seven days to
report expenses, she added,
and late expenses could be
coming in.
The local cost per vote is
about in line with the races
for Oregon’s gubernatorial
nominations.
Gov. Kate Brown won
the Democratic nomina-
tion with 315,907 votes.
Her expenditures were
$699,082, so $2.21 per vote.
Republican Greg Wool-
dridge came in third in the
primary with 60,524 votes.
He reported expenditures of
$285,679. That’s $4.72 per
vote. Second place finisher
Sam Carpenter received
87,938 votes and spent
$331,395 for $3.77 per vote.
Knute Buehler won the
Republic nomination with
139,872 votes, and getting
those cost him more than
$2.6 million.
That’s $18.90 per vote.
Independent party can-
didates Patrick Starnes
and Skye Allen are on the
other end of the cost spec-
trum. Starnes finished with
5,842 votes while spending
$3,675 for 63 cents a vote.
Allen lost with 2,333 votes
but spent just $219.40, so 9
cents per vote. But Starnes
didn’t quite secure the nom-
ination — there were 12,311
write-in votes on the ticket.
Morrow County Com-
missioner Don Russell
found the best value in his
re-election win. He reported
miscellaneous cash expen-
ditures of $95 and received
1,219 votes.
Less than 8 cents each.
Cook Security Group hiring for new Hermiston office
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
A security company that
combats everything from
trespassing to ATM fraud is
looking for new technicians
and new clients after open-
ing an office in Hermiston.
Cook Security Group,
headquartered in the Port-
land area, celebrated the
opening of its Northeast
Oregon office Wednesday,
located at 1150 W. Hartley
Ave., Suite E in Hermiston.
The company provides an
array of security measures
such as high-tech video
surveillance systems, bank
vaults, access controls and
alarms.
Ian Schuchardt, general
manager, said the company
used to specialize mostly in
protecting financial institu-
tions but has been expand-
ing into hospitals, schools,
private companies, govern-
ment institutions and data
centers.
Cook Security Group
has developed the Suspi-
cious Activity Notifica-
tion system, for example,
known as the SAN Solu-
tion, to combat ATM fraud
such as skimming and
jackpotting.
“Whenever there are
new solutions from ven-
dors, (criminals) seem to
have a way to work around
it,” Schuchardt said. “The
SAN Solution covers a lot.”
One of the most pop-
ular ways criminals use
ATMs for theft is a tech-
nique known as skimming.
The thieves hide a device
on an unattended ATM
machine or gas station
pump that reads a person’s
credit/debit card informa-
tion at the same time as the
machine, then stores that
information for the thieves
to use themselves or sell on
the black market. In 2016
dozens of Hermiston resi-
dents reported falling vic-
tim to a skimming scheme.
Another newer method
is jackpotting, in which
criminals install malware
on the ATM and tell it to
“test” the dispenser by dis-
pensing cash over and over
again.
“They can clear out an
ATM in less than an hour,”
Schuchardt said.
The security company
can install a system on the
ATM that combats fraud in
a number of ways, such as
cameras that sense when
someone has been stand-
ing in front of an ATM for
an unusual amount of time,
allowing Cook Security
or the financial institution
to shut down the machine
remotely or notify police
after reviewing the video.
Craig Cook, vice pres-
ident of operations, said
the Cook Security Group
has invested a lot in devel-
opment of new technol-
ogy and creative solu-
tions in order to keep up
with the constant stream
of new methods criminals
use. The company also pro-
vides technology such as
door access controls and
surveillance for “high-se-
curity environments where
you want to regulate where
everybody goes.”
Glen Valiguette, an
installation technician who
was based in the Tri-Cit-
ies before Cook opened
the Hermiston office, said
the local office will allow
the company to serve more
businesses and government
institutions in what has
been a growing market.
“We finally got to the
point where we needed an
office, needed a base of
operations here rather than
our truck,” he said.
For more informa-
tion about Cook Security
Group, visit www.cookse-
curitygroup.com.
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