PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly stands by her idea to have city employees participate in the city’s first “Get Out The Vote" canvassing event.
“At a time of massive voter disenfranchisement and suppression, I'm proud to advance this voluntary, non-partisan and content-neutral effort to get out the vote in Portland,” Eudaly explained. “We've carefully vetted this project and are confident that we're in compliance with all local and state laws. By focusing on areas with low voter turnout for the last three elections, this canvas will reach thousands of households of all political persuasions.”
The canvassing event is scheduled to take place Friday, November 2. Eudaly said city employees will head to neighborhoods that have had less than 50 percent voter turnout in the last three elections.
However, while that sounds like a simple concept, former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury said that strategy could end up targeting one political party.
“It really becomes an interesting issue because lower turnout tends to be in minority communities and I don't know who that favors in the city race, I don't know, all I know is just selecting some precincts, there's a political choice in those precincts,” Bradbury explained.
Eudaly said employees will be given strict instructions before the canvassing event to ensure this is a nonpartisan effort to get out the vote.
“This is a nonpartisan, content neutral effort and it will be a door hanger, not a knock and talk, so city employees will not be out on the streets trying to convince people to vote one way or another and they’re going to get very clear instructions before they leave,” Eudaly said. “They can’t wear T-shirts or buttons for a candidate or measure, they can’t discuss pros and cons of measures, this is simply a get out the vote effort in the three precincts with the lowest voter turnout in the last three election cycles.”
Under Oregon State Law it is illegal for city employees to endorse one candidate or measure over another.
City employees have to volunteer to take part. It is not mandatory. However, they will be doing it on city time, while on the city’s payroll.
The Multnomah County Republican Party filed a petition against the event Monday, saying this is an illegal use of taxpayer money.
“It’s a waste of money,” explained Multnomah County Republican Party Chair James Buchal. “There’s a lot of high priority problems that the city has and it’s going around and collecting votes, doesn’t seem like much of a budget priority to me.”
The complaint says canvassing is not part of the job descriptions of the employees involved and claims there are no funds in the city budget allocated for this purpose, so it should not be allowed.
“If you have a budgeting process and you decide what to spend the money on and the council votes on it and adopts the budgets, can the commissioners just go out and do whatever they want? That's the question,” Buchal said.
The director of the Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, the commission that oversees the budget for Multnomah County, said they received the petition and are looking into it.
The Portland City Attorney’s Office said it believes it is legal for city employees to canvass to get out the vote and said the city is ensuring that water and sewer ratepayer funds are not being used to support this effort.