Lincoln County – The Assault on Mail-In Voting

By Brian Bahouth

According to Marie McFarland, the founder of the Lincoln City–based group Hilltop Patriots, an effort is under way to place an initiative on the 2026 midterm ballot that would end universal mail-in voting in Lincoln County, Oregon.

Questioning the integrity of mail-in balloting is a reflection of top-down MAGA orthodoxy unfolding in locations across the nation. 

Following the 2020 elections, Donald Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. Since then, scrutiny of the vote counting process has intensified at the local level. 

In Lincoln County, Republicans have insisted that they closely observe every aspect of the vote-by-mail verification process, and they have done so, according to Lincoln County Clerk Amy Southwell, as have Democrats as well. 

An increase in the nationwide use of mail-in balloting during the COVID-19 pandemic spurred vote-by-mail conspiracy theories. 

In 2023, an effort to end mail-in voting in Oregon was rejected in federal court for lack of evidence, and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear the case. 

On August 18 of this year, President Trump further energized vote-by-mail skepticism when he said he intended to sign an executive order that would ban the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterms, calling the practice “corrupt” and “fraudulent.”

However, within days of issuing the statement, the White House announced that it would instead work to end mail-in voting through legislative channels in Congress and MAGA-friendly state legislatures.

How Trump’s evolving expression of political will in this affair trickles down to the state and regional level is a matter of local interpretation, but according to Marie McFarland, the effort to end mail-in voting in Lincoln County is a top priority for her group. 

Lincoln County Clerk Amy Southwell, whose office oversees elections in Lincoln County, told me that she has never been presented with any of the Hilltop Patriot allegations or any evidence to support the assertions, but she would welcome such inquiries.

McFarland alleges that dead people vote in Lincoln County. 

“How do you explain it when people tell us that they’ve had a deceased family member that’s been voting for years, but they’re deceased,” McFarland said. “So that says there’s problems and we need to clean it up.”

Southwell said it is “very unlikely” that deceased citizens are voting in Lincoln County.

“She [Marie McFarland] has been part of these parties that come and observe our election process. And I’m not sure about some of these accusations she’s making or why. 

“We take our process very seriously, and so if someone is dead and we don’t know about it, it’s really hard to get past us with the signature, unless someone really has made sure that they’ve got that signature down on the person who has passed. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen or couldn’t happen, but I don’t think that it has happened in our county.”

Lincoln County election workers are trained to cross-check signatures across records. Election workers receive FBI training to spot forgeries.

In Oregon, falsifying a mail-in ballot is a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $125,000. A person convicted of this crime also loses the right to vote while serving their sentence. 

According to a 2021 Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office report, the incidence of criminal prosecution of voter fraud is infinitesimal. Many argue the low incidence of criminal prosecution  demonstrates that voter fraud is exceedingly rare in Oregon. 

Between the years 2000 and 2019, Oregonians cast approximately 60.9 million ballots in statewide and special elections. The Oregon Department of Justice reports that the Criminal Justice Division (and the Civil Enforcement Division) obtained 38 criminal convictions relating to voter fraud during that period. 

“The most prevalent forms of voter fraud,” according to a report issued by the Division, “are duplicate voting [i.e., a person who votes in more than one state in the same election] and ballot forgery [i.e.., a member of a household who fills out the ballots of other household members and fraudulently signs their names]. 

“The Division obtained 38 criminal convictions for voter fraud out of the 60.9 million ballots in Oregon elections cast over a 19-year period,” the report reads. “That amounts to a rate of .00006 percent.” 

If there is actual evidence of mail-in voting irregularities in Lincoln County, Amy Southwell is eager to see it. “If it is happening, why aren’t they coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, Amy, this is something that’s going on. I want to let you know you need to investigate this or get the state investigating it.’ But no one has ever come to me, or Dana [Jenkins] prior to me, saying anything about that,” Southwell told me by phone.

McFarland also claims that there are people who vote numerous times when erroneous ballots are sent to a given address.

“We had an individual come to our one of our signings, and this gentleman and his wife were both Postal Service people, and they said, ‘We want to sign that because,’ they said, ‘as an example, we have one woman on our route that receives six ballots, all with different names, and she signs them because she’s still receiving ballots in other names.’ So this one woman votes six times, and when they took it back to the Postal Service, they said, ‘Forget it. It’s their worry, not ours,’” McFarland said.

Amy Southwell said the claim doesn’t add up.

“I don’t know how it would happen that someone at the Post Office said, ‘Well, a particular person is getting tons of ballots and they’re just voting them all and signing them all.’ How are they doing that? If a person isn’t living there anymore, how are they getting that signature down? And how does Marie or anybody know that we aren’t looking at those and saying, ‘Oh, that is obviously something we are not counting. That’s not the signature that matches what we have on file for that voter.’

“We take classes. We’re very careful how we check the signatures, so some of those accusations, I just don’t know how legit they are.

“I’ve worked here for a very long time, and like my predecessor, we take it very seriously. We don’t just let anything go. We’re very careful about these signatures. So I don’t know where she’s coming up with some of the things she’s saying.”

McFarland also alleges that underage people are voting. 

“We have underage kids voting. We have people voting that shouldn’t be voting. Our voter rolls are a mess, and they have not gotten cleaned up. If they were clean, if you could count on that, it would be different. 

“What our initiative is, is to get it on the ballot, to vote for it and let people decide if they want mail-in or if they want the combination of vote in person. And for those who need a mail-in ballot, they can still get theirs”

County election officials control ballot distribution. An underage registrant will not receive a ballot for any election until the first election that occurs on or after their 18th birthday, though Oregon residents can preregister (but not vote) as soon as they turn 17.

The DMV and other state agencies also validate voter age data. 

“I’ve never had a ballot come back for somebody that is underage, ever,” Southwell said.

According to Southwell, the maintenance of registered voter roles is a constant work in progress. People die, they move in and out of the area, they change addresses.

“We try to keep the rolls clean. It’s hard, though. If we don’t know someone dies. We have many sources that contact us, but if the family doesn’t notify us, sometimes it’s hard, yes, someone [who has died] will be on there [on the voter rolls]. 

“You’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that person died a year ago.’ And then a ballot might go out, but that doesn’t mean it’s voted. Half the time they come back, or if the family got them, they’ll call us and say, ‘Oh, we got a ballot for so and so, and they passed away.’ Or they’ll send it back saying, ‘This person passed away.’ We try to get all the information that we possibly can. But we’re human, and the systems don’t always work with us. 

“The ideal [situation] would be if a family member called and said, ‘So and so passed away,’ and then we also got all the information from state records. But some people die in different states, and we don’t get that information from them,” Southwell said.

Further, McFarland contends that a mail-in voter in Lincoln County doesn’t know whether their vote is counted, “because it isn’t counted at the city or the county level. It goes to the state, to the Secretary of State,” McFarland said.

“That’s inaccurate. It’s counted here,” Southwell said. “We count everything here. How it works is, when someone votes and I’m running it through my machine, that’s my process. That’s why I’m County Clerk. I look at them. I run the report. I then have to upload my data to the state. 

“I think what [McFarland] is probably saying is that when we upload our data and it goes to the state, sometimes the state’s website does not have … I shouldn’t say it’s inaccurate, because I think they try very hard to make sure that it’s showing it [each person’s vote], but there are times I’m not sure that it’s reflecting that the person voted.”

But that doesn’t mean the vote didn’t count, according to Southwell. Should a person have concerns about their vote, the Clerk encourages them to contact her office for a definitive answer. Southwell is looking for funding that would enable her to establish an email or text system of direct voter notification after their vote is received and counted.

According to several independent organizations, conspiracy theories largely drive the movement to restrict mail-in voting. Baseless claims of widespread voter fraud are often made but have never been proved in a court of law or other certified venue.

As of this writing, the Lincoln County Clerk’s office has not received the necessary paperwork to begin the initiative process to reconsider mail-in voting. Amy Southwell was unaware of the effort until I called.