PORTLAND, OR -- With so much attention on election security around the country, Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan is trying to ease concerns here. At a recent press conference, she pointed to measures already in place to protect the integrity of Oregon elections, "Number one: The DMV checks the age and citizenship for every single registered voter for Oregon and verifies that. Number two: There’s a unique barcode on every single ballot envelope. No two ballot envelopes are the same. But that unique barcode is also tied to every registered voter uniquely in Oregon." 

And, she says there are even more steps once the ballot is back at the county elections office, "That signature on the back of the envelope has to match, and there’s a whole process to verify those signatures using a technique of forensic signature verification. All of the ballot processing and counting machines are offline. Absolutely nothing goes online; unhackable because everything is offline." And, Fagan says voting on paper ballots means there’s always a paper trail.

Ballots must be dropped off by 8 p.m. on May 17, or postmarked by that day and received by mail within seven days of Election Day.