Over the past few months, the Clatsop County clerk’s office has been hit with more than 10 public records requests related to the November 2020 election and May election, along with emails alleging election fraud and threatening litigation.

Clatsop County isn’t alone.

“Election clerks across America have been inundated with public records requests,” Tracie Krevanko, the county clerk, said during a presentation at a county commissioners work session on Oct. 19. “Many are cut-and-pastes of the same requests for the same information. Some are just letters letting us know of their dissatisfaction with what they are hearing in the false narrative.

“Our office has been working closely with our public affairs officer in responding to these public records requests as appropriate.”

In states across the nation, such records requests appear designed to jam up county clerks’ offices as the Nov. 8 election draws near. Many missives are crafted to create an aura of suspicion around elections.

The requests began after Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive, urged his followers to demand information from elections officials. Lindell has perpetuated the falsehood that former President Donald Trump did not really lose the presidential election to Joe Biden in the November 2020 election.

At a county commissioners meeting earlier this month, people involved with the Clatsop County Republican Party expressed doubts about the security and transparency of the state’s elections system, including the county’s.

The Republicans said they have reason to distrust Oregon’s vote-by-mail system, approved by voters in 1998, and the machines that count the votes. The group shared concerns that the machines’ software and voters’ personal information could be compromised.

They asked the county to conduct in-person voting only and to hand count the votes in future elections, including the one on Nov. 8.

The Republicans pointed to a pair of recently filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Portland.

One names Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan as a defendant; the other names Fagan and 12 counties in the state as defendants. Both suits allege that the state’s vote tabulation machines are unreliable and vulnerable to sabotage.

Clatsop County is not named as a defendant in the lawsuits, but the Republicans argued that the county’s elections system is similarly suspect. They alleged that the vote-counting machines that the county uses are not properly certified.

The county uses Election Systems & Software. This company’s equipment is certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which means it has been tested by a federally accredited vote system test laboratory. Federal law provides that the accreditation of a test lab cannot be revoked unless the commission votes to revoke it. This has not happened.

“It is critical for elections officials to get ahead of the false information by sharing the fact that Oregon has had free and fair elections through vote by mail for over 20 years,” Krevanko said on Wednesday. “When Oregonians know all the steps we take to protect the integrity of our elections, it can undercut the conspiracy theories from proponents of the ‘big lie.’” That is, the claim that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen from Trump.

A 2020 review of Oregon’s vote-by-mail system by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Office found that, of nearly 61 million ballots cast in Oregon between 2000 to 2019, there were 38 criminal convictions for voter fraud — a rate of 0.0000006%.

“We’ve never seen widespread fraud on a scale that would impact the results of an election in Oregon,” Krevanko said.

Lisa Lamping, the chairwoman of Clatsop County Republicans, said Krevanko’s presentation did not address many of their specific concerns, including the frequency with which elections equipment has been certified.

“While they’re doing a really good job — they’ve been pretty responsive to us — there are still some issues that they’re not addressing, and we are still trying to formulate a response,” she said.

In the run-up to the November 2020 election, Lamping observed a test of the county’s ballot counting equipment. In an article for her community news website, Clatsop News, she concluded:

“After watching the test, and the process, it appears, once the Clatsop County elections department has possession of your ballot, the citizens of Clatsop County are in good hands and can rest assured that every effort is made to accurately and fairly count each and everyone’s ballot.”

Asked why her views had changed, Lamping said in an email:

“I am much more aware of the potential issues than I was then. A lot has come out in two years. I do believe Clatsop County has no ill intent … but I do have my doubts about the process that I was unaware of two-plus years ago. I am not 100% confident in the machines.”

She added that Krevanko is trying hard but that the clerk’s “hands are tied on some things.”

County Manager Don Bohn said on Wednesday that the county’s elections systems and structures evolve with technology and state law in response to challenges and in light of new best practices.

“Clatsop County takes its custodial role with these systems really, really seriously,” he said. “We’re going to execute the best local election that we possibly can, but it’s within the framework that is established at the state level, and it is a state system,” he said.

Bohn added that Krevanko, her staff and volunteers and election workers “do this because they believe in this democracy. They believe that the elections process is a foundation to the entire system.”