Voting

The Oregon secretary of state’s office has a backlog of more than 500 election complaints. They date back to 2019.

It doesn’t look good if they are not completed promptly.

Secretary of State Shemia Fagan proposes to deal with it, in part, by asking the Legislature to invest more than $600,000, which includes two positions. It’s part of a package of options from Fagan’s office the Legislature was briefed on last week.

Oregon — and democracy — is in trouble if voters don’t have faith in elections.

Fagan has already taken some steps to try to prevent that from happening.

Her team has come up with $15 million in various proposals for the Legislature to ponder. That includes a total of just over 39 new positions, among other things.

There’s more investments to ensure preserving public records and more capacity to do the all-important audits.

There’s an investment in replacing ORESTAR, which is the state’s campaign finance tracking system. It’s creaky. If you have ever tried to use it, it feels like going back to more clunky computer era.

And there is an additional request to spend $1.8 million to do more to combat false information about elections.

We know legislators will face tough decisions about money this session.

And we can’t say investing in

Fagan’s solutions is the most important place for legislators to spend money. But faith in elections can’t be assumed. It needs active support.