Here is what the 3 Democrats running for Oregon secretary of state say about how they’d do the job

State Sen. Mark Hass, state Sen. Shemia Fagan and former candidate for Congress Jamie McLeod-Skinner are competing for the Democratic nomination to become Oregon’s secretary of state.

All three promise to make it easier to vote in Oregon. But they diverge on other questions, including whether the Legislature or an independent commission could best oversee redrawing district lines to reflect 2020 Census counts.

The three have raised roughly similar amounts of money but from very different pools of donors. Hass raised much of his $185,000 from business sources, including $5,000 apiece from advocacy group Oregon Business and Industry, the chairman of car sales giant Lithia Motors and rail car manufacturer Greenbrier. His largest donation, $25,000, came from environmental nonprofit founder Richard Roy.

Fagan raised more than $150,000 of the $225,000 she has reported to date from two of the largest public employee unions in Oregon, led by $55,000 apiece from Service Employees International Union 503 and the Oregon Education Association. And McLeod-Skinner, who raised $263,000 last year and this, rolled over about $16,000 worth of contributions raised during her unsuccessful 2018 run to unseat U.S. Rep Greg Walden in his sprawling Republican-dominated Eastern Oregon district and is refusing donations from corporations.

Here are their answers to seven key questions posed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Some responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Oregon is among the easiest, if not the easiest, places in the nation to vote, given our vote-by-mail system, pre-paid postage and automatic voter registration. What one example would you give of a continuing barrier to voting? Or have we made it easy enough?

Hass: Oregonians who changed addresses or moved are cut off from voting unless they register within 21 days before an election. That’s too long. Twenty states have moved to same day voter registration without compromising elections security. In each state, voting percentages increased. With today’s technology, Oregon can also verify necessary information like addresses and age requirements. We should do it. Often, it’s working people who get caught in this 21-day cut-off. This is often when people start paying attention to an upcoming election – only to find out they can’t vote.

Fagan: I have a long track record of championing expanded ballot access, including automatic voter registration and pre-paid postage on all ballots. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed one key challenge to our otherwise strong paper-ballot system: We currently count only those ballots received by mail at the elections office or an official drop site by 8 p.m. on Election Day, which means later voters rely disproportionately on drop sites. Accepting ballots postmarked through Election Day instead would set a clear deadline for voters without forcing them to leave home and share a ballot drop box handle with thousands of their neighbors.

McLeod-Skinner: One of my metrics for success will be increasing turnout and decreasing the discrepancies between different demographic groups. We need to collect data, develop strategic plans and work with community-based organizations to increase turnout. I favor a more user-friendly website, local info and registration kiosks, more social media presence and more languages and accommodations for voters with disabilities.

There are several legislative fixes I would advocate — same-day registration, having postmarks count and lowering the voting age, which would require a constitutional change. My job would be ensuring more voices are heard and creating a voting culture amongst newer voters.

Oregon secretaries of state play a major role in government transparency. One way they do this is their role as the top boss of the Audits Division. How involved would you be in picking the areas auditors investigate and deciding how much of their findings is shared with the public?

Fagan: I believe the most important role of the Audits Division is conducting oversight with the intention of ensuring best practices rather than simply playing “gotcha.” The Audits Division has the benefit of employing an extraordinary depth of public sector financial and operational expertise, which can and should be used to strengthen the state’s public institutions. As secretary of state, I will select audits areas based on my view that public services must be delivered at the highest quality, that workers providing services must be protected and secure, and that our operating standards must be rooted in equity and fairness.

McLeod-Skinner: I would be very involved in establishing the types of audits (financial, performance, equity, sustainability, safety and information security), the review criteria, input on suggested audits and the selection (of) targeted agencies and programs. My focus would be health and safety, identifying both what is working and what needs to change.

Other than standard privacy protocols, the audit results are the public’s property and will be made available to the public. I will work to establish these processes and procedures into Oregon Administrative Rules to ensure transparency so the public and public entities can anticipate the standards and scope of future audits.

Hass: I will be involved in the Audits Division every day. I will play a hands-on role in selecting the areas that should be investigated or audited to protect tax dollars. Here are my criteria: eliminate waste, ensure laws are followed, protect children in foster care, ensure state agencies minimize their carbon footprint and make sure agencies and their contractors comply with ethics and diversity standards. Once an audit is underway, I will get out of the way and let the professionals complete their work. Their findings –­– no matter what they conclude –– will be made public and communicated by my office.

Oregon’s Legislature currently handles redistricting, but there’s a national movement among Democrats to give the job to independent commissions. Which redistricting method do you support?

McLeod-Skinner: Ensuring fair redistricting is critical to a healthy democracy. If a better system than we currently have were proposed, I would support it. I don’t think the currently proposed ballot measure to switch Oregon to an independent commission is that, because I am not confident that it better provides a voice for communities of interest than does our Legislature. The criterion spelled out in the Oregon Revised Statutes provides solid criteria, and our process has been working. None of the proposed changes provide assurances to include people who can represent and speak for Oregon’s diverse communities. That’s a deal breaker.

Hass: Voters are clamoring to find a way to break the increasing partisanship in politics. I agree with them. It’s time for an outside commission to do this job – not legislators. While there are no egregious problems of gerrymandering in current districts, there is an inconvenient truth: the number of competitive seats continues to decrease. Legislators from both parties redraw districts by trading “safe” seats where it’s almost impossible for an incumbent to lose. This happens by mapping districts that are extremely blue and extremely red. It’s time for a change to add competition to the list of factors to be considered when drawing political boundaries.

Fagan: As secretary of state, I will take that responsibility seriously, and I am committed to actively focusing redistricting efforts on the foundational principle of equal representation and “one person one vote,” especially for communities historically failed by our government and underrepresented in the legislative process. While the U.S. Supreme Court recently took a pass on calling out partisan gerrymandering, Oregon law strictly prohibits it. Oregon law prohibits drawing district lines to benefit any political party, incumbent or person and as a civil rights attorney I take the law very seriously and will uphold it in all redistricting efforts.

The coronavirus pandemic could make it much more difficult for initiative campaigns to qualify for the ballot this year. In light of this, would it be beneficial if citizens were more easily able to gather signatures electronically?

Hass: No, the risks of online voting were laid bare by unsettling technical problems during the Iowa caucuses. It’s tempting to move forward with electronic signature-gathering in the midst of the pandemic, but the technology to make it safe and secure is not ready – at least not yet. The potential for fraud is too high. Until we can guarantee honest signature-gathering, we can’t allow electronic signature-gathering even in this time of crisis. Moving too quickly to untested technology could have damaging consequences that I would not risk.

Fagan: In 2019, I supported Senate Bill 761, which limited legitimate electronic signatures to those on petitions downloaded and printed by the voter who signed it or by someone asked to do so by that voter, and required all such petitions to include the text of a proposed initiative.

Eligible voters who want to register support for placing an initiative on the ballot should be able to do so, regardless of housing status, language spoke or income level. As secretary of state, I would establish verification requirements rooted in fairness.

McLeod-Skinner: Yes, as exasperating as it is for some, ballot measures are part of Oregon’s independent nature. Limiting signature-gathering reduces the possibility of ballot measures making it to the ballot. Signatures only determine whether Oregonians will vote on a measure, not whether it becomes law. While there are costs involved with printing and distributing ballots, this is an investment in our democracy.

Before signatures are gathered, the secretary of state should determine and disclose whether or not a measure will be supported, and the attorney general’s office should provide a ballot title, so signatories will know what they are supporting.

Oregon’s current secretary of state has been criticized for her decisions on whether proposed ballot initiatives meet the state’s constitutional single subject rule. What if anything needs to be changed in response to this?

Fagan: The Oregon Court of Appeals recently ruled that the secretary of state’s decisions regarding the single-subject rule were unconstitutional. I agree with the court’s interpretation of the three ballot measures in question. While the secretary of state has a role in determining whether ballot measures meet fundamental legal requirements, she should consult with and heavily weigh advice from independent career officials and legal experts in the department. Additionally, she should be careful to not take an overly narrow view on those legal requirements because doing so can stifle public will.

McLeod-Skinner: We need a better process: 1) review language and raise issues before signature-gathering if final language will not be approved; 2) request attorney general provide a title before signatures are gathered so voters know what is being proposed; 3) discuss potential legal issues with the AG and not seek outside counsel to go around the public’s attorney; 4) recognize that single-issue ballot measures may contain different components within that single issue; 5) screen proposed ballot measures for discriminatory or unconstitutional language or proposals; and 6) have a rapid response for responding to signature-gatherers who misrepresent ballot measures.

Hass: The secretary of state should always consult with the attorney general on decisions to approve or disapprove ballot initiatives. This not only provides legal advice to guide the secretary of state, it serves as a public record so that Oregonians can see the legal reasoning and the documentation behind a decision. Whether this should be a new law is up to the Legislature and Oregonians – but I will always consult with the attorney general for advice on ballot initiatives.

Oregon currently allows political candidates and PACs to delay reporting their transactions for 30 days, until the timeline shrinks very close to elections. Is that a good law and if so, why?

McLeod-Skinner: No, candidates should report transactions within one week, and more quickly once ballots drop. The 30-day window allows candidates to hide their funding from voters and strategize when transactions are made public. This benefits candidates, not voters. I support full transparency in political funding. If you want to represent the public, you should be willing to let the public see who is supporting you and how you are spending your campaign contributions.

Further, ORESTAR needs to be more user friendly and searchable. As secretary of state, I will find and allocate resources to improve public access to campaign finance transactions.

Hass: Keeping voters adequately informed requires timely campaign finance reports. Thirty days is too long. Seven days would be just as easy for most candidates. And 24-hour reporting should be required in the final weeks before an election. As technology improves, I will push for real-time reporting as the new standard.

Fagan: In my experience, current campaign expenditure reporting requirements strike a decent balance between transparency and what can be expensive and time-consuming reporting requirements. The requirements currently align fairly well with the natural rhythm of campaign expenditures, which tend to be less frequent further out from election day and increase in both size and frequency as Election Day approaches. Through ORESTAR, Oregonians have extensive transaction-level detail that provides substantial transparency throughout and following campaigns.

Do you support Oregon’s complete lack of limits on political contributions? If not, what specific change would you seek from your bully pulpit as secretary of state?

Hass: I have worked hard for years to change this law so we can set contribution limits -- and finally it looks like it may happen. In November, Oregon voters will be asked to amend the Constitution so that campaign finance limits are not a protected expression of speech. If approved, state and local governments will then be allowed to set limits. I was the chief sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 18, which is the measure voters will see in November. I will campaign hard to pass this constitutional measure, then lead the conversation on setting real contribution limits next year.

Fagan: I support political contribution limits that maximize the inherently grassroots impact of small-dollar donors and minimize the outsized impact of large-dollar donors. I am guided by the following principles:

>> Treating corporations and grassroots small-donor political action committees as equivalent undermines the electoral system.

>> Individuals should face reasonable limits that keep running for office accessible while minimizing the outsized impact a single wealthy donor can have on a race.

>> We must be wary of opening the door to a wave of dark money in Oregon politics.

>> We should ensure candidates can pay campaign workers a living wage.

McLeod-Skinner: I absolutely do not support the lack of limits on money in politics. I’m the only candidate who has only asked for limited donations and is not taking corporate contributions -- and never have, dating back to my first race in 2004. Democracy must not be beholden to the highest bidder.

I support the ballot measure to amend the Constitution to allow contribution limits. The Legislature failed in not passing a corollary measure establishing such limits.

I advocate statewide contribution limits. Tying them to the federal limits makes sense. While not the secretary of state’s purview, I also support overturning the Citizens United ruling.

-- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

-- Betsy Hammond; betsyhammond@oregonian.com; @OregonianPol

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.