Oregon is one of those mail-in ballot states where everyone registered gets mailed a ballot:

The U.S. state of Oregon established vote-by-mail as the standard mechanism for voting with 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure 60, a citizen’s initiative. The measure made Oregon the first state in the United States to conduct its elections exclusively by mail. The measure passed on November 3, 1998, by a margin of 69.4% to 30.6%. Political scientists say Oregon’s vote by mail system contributes to its highest-in-the-nation rate of voter turnout, at 61.5% of eligible voters.

However, from Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch announced a settlement in its federal lawsuit against Oregon election officials, which confirms 800,000 ineligible voter names are slated for review and removal from voter registration lists. The settlement requires state officials to produce detailed data and enforce federal voter roll clean-up procedures under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). …

In its complaint, Judicial Watch argued that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserted that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon had the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation. In combination, all of these facts showed that Oregon was failing to remove inactive registrations as required by federal law.

One important point: the names being removed are already inactive, and Oregon officials say they do not receive ballots anyway. So no harm, no foul, right? But – why are they still on the rolls, then? Why did it take a lawsuit to remove them? Who polices whether a name is “inactive” or not?

Maybe it’s all fine. But I’d like to get answers to those questions. It may be the case that now we will:

The settlement requires Oregon to open its voter roll maintenance processes to unprecedented scrutiny. State officials must now regularly provide detailed, county-level data on voter registrations, removals, confirmation notices, and inactive voters—including those eligible for removal under federal law. This includes data reported to the Election Assistance Commission, as well as additional datasets that will allow ongoing monitoring of compliance. The agreement ensures that this information will not be hidden behind bureaucratic barriers, requiring timely disclosure and identification of data sources.

It’s a start.