Now who counts the ballots?
Oregon has a voter apathy problem. Not a mystery. Not a conspiracy. A reality.
Multnomah County alone has more than half a million registered voters, and like it or not, it drives statewide outcomes. That fact has pushed many Oregonians outside Portland into resignation. Some joke darkly that the state is “run by Portland.” Others stop joking and start packing maps for Idaho under the banner of Greater Idaho. When people feel politically irrelevant, apathy isn’t a moral failure, it’s a rational response.
Into that frustration marches the #ENDVBM movement, waving flags, chanting about “patriotic Election Day voting,” and promising to tear down Oregon’s vote-by-mail system in favor of single-day, in-person, hand-counted elections.
I get the sentiment. I share part of it.
There is something fundamentally civic and sacred about taking time out of your life to show up on Election Day, present ID, cast a paper ballot, and participate openly in self-government. Many Americans grew up with that ritual. It mattered. It still matters.
But sentiment is not a system.
And nostalgia is not an election plan.
The Inconvenient Question the ENDVBM Crowd Won’t Answer
Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that polling is wrong. That political gravity fails. That somehow, against all odds, a citizens’ initiative succeeds and Oregon ends vote-by-mail.
Now what?
Who exactly is going to run elections in Multnomah County?
Who staffs the polling places?
Who recruits precinct volunteers?
Who verifies voter rolls?
Who oversees chain-of-custody?
Who counts tens of thousands of ballots, precinct by precinct, under public scrutiny?
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: Republicans currently have almost no ground game in Multnomah County.
Not opinions. Not vibes. Receipts.
In many Portland precincts with 5,000 to 9,000 registered voters, there are zero Republican Precinct Committee Persons. Zero. No bench. No volunteer infrastructure. No trained observers. No trusted local teams.
So ask yourself… honestly… if vote-by-mail disappeared tomorrow, would Republicans trust the results coming out of Portland?
And if the answer is “no,” then the next question is unavoidable:
What system replaces it that anyone could trust?
You Can’t Hand-Count Ballots With Facebook Posts
Ending vote-by-mail doesn’t magically create volunteers.
It doesn’t conjure election workers.
It doesn’t produce trained precinct officials out of thin air.
Hand-counting ballots requires people. Lots of them. Calm, trained, local people willing to spend 12-hour days inside schools, churches, and community centers, under pressure, with observers watching every move.
Right now, conservatives barely have enough volunteers to staff a booth at a county fair, let alone oversee election operations in the most politically hostile city in the state.
That’s not an insult. It’s an operational reality.
Patriotism Isn’t Enough
Some in the ENDVBM movement talk as if patriotism alone solves logistics.
It doesn’t.
I believe deeply in civic duty. I believe voting should be taken seriously. I believe paper ballots matter. I believe election integrity matters.
But integrity is built, not declared.
And tearing down a system without a credible replacement doesn’t strengthen trust, it obliterates it.
If Oregon ended vote-by-mail tomorrow, we wouldn’t get a cleaner election. We’d get chaos, litigation, long lines, uneven enforcement, volunteer shortages, and deep mistrust, especially in urban counties where one side lacks representation entirely.
That isn’t reclaiming democracy. That’s lighting it on fire and hoping the smoke clears in your favor.
The Hard Truth
Oregon’s election system didn’t fail because people stopped showing up to polling places.
It evolved because people stopped staffing them.
Vote-by-mail filled a vacuum created by apathy, mobility, and modern life. You can argue about whether that evolution was good or bad, but pretending you can reverse it overnight without rebuilding the civic infrastructure first is fantasy.
Real reform starts with ground game, not grandstanding.
With local volunteers, not viral hashtags.
With representation inside the system, not shouting at it from outside.
Until conservatives are willing to do the unglamorous work, precinct by precinct, neighborhood by neighborhood, ending vote-by-mail isn’t a reform plan.
It’s a protest.
And protests don’t count ballots.
Find source links on my Substack post here.
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