Elections in Oregon

A state Voters’ Pamphlet is mailed to every household in Oregon about three weeks before each statewide election.

[2] In March 2010, Oregon became the fourth state in the country (along with Arizona, Washington, and Kansas) to allow online voter registration.

[3] In March 2015, the Oregon legislature passed a bill to adopt an automatic voter registration procedure using information from the State DMV.

The Oregon Constitution allows for a broader right to free speech than at the federal level including the topic of political campaign donations.

The amendment to the Oregon Constitution, passed by ballot initiative, was largely the result of decades of advocacy by Abigail Scott Duniway, who founded a weekly newspaper, The New Northwest, in part to promote voting rights for women.

Initiatives and referendums may be placed on the ballot if their supporters gather enough signatures from Oregon voters; the number of signatures is a percentage based on the number of voters casting ballots in the most recent election for the Governor of Oregon.

[15] Oregon voters have acted on 851 statewide ballot measures (359 initiatives, 64 referendums, and 428 legislative referrals) since the system was introduced in 1902.

The system met with fairly widespread success and was made permanent for the majority of counties for local/special elections in 1987.

The Oregon Legislature approved a proposal to expand VBM to primary and general elections in the spring of 1995, but Governor John Kitzhaber vetoed the bill.

No paid signature gatherers were used to put the measure on the ballot – a first since 1994, and on November 3, 1998 Oregon voters decide to expand VBM to primary and general elections by a vote of 757,204 to 334,021.

Copies of historical voters' pamphlets from Marion County (containing most statewide races and ballot measures) are online at the Oregon State Library.

[21] The race to replace her was expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation, since the district contained about 2,000 more Republicans than Democrats at that time.

[22][23] Despite the initial closeness of the race, Democratic nominee Kurt Schrader won against Republican nominee Mike Erickson, 166,070 (54.5%) to 116,418 (38.2%) who had been winner of a contentious primary in which an opponent, Kevin Mannix, raised an allegation that Erickson paid for a former girlfriend's abortion.

A 1912 editorial cartoon about the cumbersome nature of direct democracy: No. 1. The Glasgow (Scotland) voter has only one name—his ward councilman—to vote for, and he has the best city government in the world. No. 2. The Des Moines (Iowa) voter has only five men on his ticket, and has the best city government in the United States. No. 3. The Portland, Oregon, voter has in this year of our Lord 1912, about 100 candidates for office on his ticket; and 39 long initiative and referendum proposed state laws, and 22 proposed city laws—and altogether proposing an indebtedness on the taxpayers of forty to fifty millions of dollars. It is safe to say that all this proposed law making will not even be read by one-fourth of the voters—and no man can know what his rights or obligations may be under these circumstances.