SALEM, OR -- More than two-dozen Republican state lawmakers claim a new effort to curb election misinformation by the Secretary of State’s office would stifle the free speech of Oregonians.

A group of 20 State Representatives and seven Senators signed a letter to Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade this week. Rep. Ed Diehl shared the letter on social media Wednesday. The Republicans claim a UK-based company was awarded a contract last month to monitor social media posts for threats. They say the program would also allow artificial intelligence to determine what to label as "misinformation."

Laura Kerns, with Griffin-Valade’s office, acknowledges a request for proposal (RFP) was issued, and a UK-based firm is one of the companies they’re talking to. But says, "We have not signed a contract at this time." She tells the Oregon Radio News Network, "There may be some confusion stemming from an October 27th date in the RFP. But that date was aspirational at the time we began this process. Additionally, there’s nothing in this RFP that impacts free speech."

Republicans say the technology would lead to social media companies suppressing users. But Kerns says, "The Secretary of State’s office has no authority, ability or desire to censor speech. We do have a very real need to protect the people and infrastructure that make our democracy work, and provide accurate information through official channels." 

Kerns says the Secretary of State's office is looking for "A system to review websites, social media and blogs to notify us of threats and misinformation in a manner similar to a Google news alert." She notes it would only be able to monitor publicly available content, in an effort to achieve two goals, "One: To identify credible threats to public safety that we will share with law enforcement. And two: To better understand how we can most effectively share accurate information with voters by seeing what information is circulating."