Washington County voters could see new ballot drop boxes after Oregon's Emergency Board approved $1.25 million Thursday, Sept. 10, for election security ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The funding, requested by Secretary of State Tobias Read, will pay for 20 new drop boxes statewide, expand the BallotTrax ballot-tracking system to all 36 Oregon counties and send notification cards to inactive voters. Washington County is one of five counties already using BallotTrax. The funding would extend the system statewide.

The allocation breaks down to $618,000 for drop boxes and related operational costs, $154,000 for BallotTrax expansion and $480,000 for voter notification cards, according to OPB.

The request advanced with unanimous support from a legislative budget subcommittee before reaching the Emergency Board, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Why drop boxes matter locally

Washington County voters can already return ballots at the Bethany Library at 15325 NW Central Dr. and the Cedar Mill Community Library at 1080 NW Saltzman Rd., among other county drop sites. How many of the 20 new boxes will land in Washington County has not been announced. The Secretary of State's office said it conducted a statewide study to identify gaps in drop box availability before making the request.

The push for more drop boxes follows a troubled May primary. More than 7,300 of the roughly 55,000 ballots that arrived at county election offices during the seven-day grace period could not be counted because they carried a postmark after Election Day, the Hillsboro News-Times reported. That 13.1% rejection rate was higher than any prior Oregon election.

U.S. Postal Service changes that route all mail through a Portland processing center mean most Oregon mail does not receive a postmark until at least the day after it is mailed, according to the same report.

Federal pressure

Read said the funding responds to federal pressure on Oregon's vote-by-mail system. A Trump administration executive order targeting vote-by-mail would let the Postal Service decide which voters receive a ballot if states share their records with USPS. The administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in before the midterms.

A federal judge on Friday, Sept. 4, extended a preliminary injunction blocking USPS limitations on mail-in ballots at the request of Oregon and several other states, the Statesman Journal reported.

Drop boxes bypass the mail system entirely.

At a Tuesday, Sept. 8, press conference in Salem, Read urged voters to use drop boxes rather than mail their ballots. "I don't think anyone should be feeling any lack of confidence in our system because, of course, there are options … and that's why we are really encouraging people to use drop boxes and trying to make those more and more convenient," he said, as The Oregonian reported.

Ballots are scheduled to begin mailing to Oregon voters on Oct. 14.