Not much noticed in the media last week were the efforts of James Buchal (the Republican candidate for attorney general) and others to force Multnomah County to comply with the obscure bit of Oregon's elections law, ORS 254.483, that requires our county clerks to destroy unused ballots promptly after 8:00 p.m. on election day. Mr. Buchal sought the Multnomah County Circuit's court help in enforcing this law.
On October 9, Judge Youlee You denied Mr. Buchal's request, based in part on Multnomah County's argument that if the county destroyed the unused ballots promptly after 8:00 p.m., then "any citizen who is in line at 8 pm and entitled to vote but who needs a replacement ballot would be denied the right to vote" (Quaere: does anyone yet line up at the county clerk's office at 8:00 p.m. on Election Day to try to vote?). Judge You also noted that although ORS 254.483(1) requires county clerks to destroy unused ballots promptly after 8:00 p.m., ORS 254.483(2) requires county clerks to provide for the security of unused ballots promptly after 8:00 p.m. She reasoned that county clerks could not simultaneously destroy the ballots and keep them secure, and observed that the clerks place the unused ballots in sealed boxes and place the boxes in a locked room. Seeing it as her duty under a 1955 Oregon supreme court case to adopt an interpretation that would give effect to the entire statute and not one that would "wreck a substantial and important part of it," Judge You held that the counties do not have to destroy the ballots despite the plain language of the statute.
The final oddity of the case is that Multnomah County wants the plaintiffs to pay the county's attorney fees, leading to the amusing if painful realization that the county's taxpayers are paying their lawyers first to defend the county's unwillingness to follow state law, and then to recover the cost of not following state law from the citizens who want it to.