How To Register To Vote In Oregon If You're Homeless

Street Roots registered 125 homeless people this month to vote in Nov's full general ballot.

PORTLAND, Ore. — In an unprecedented push to empower homeless people to vote in adjacent week's election, more than 100 people living on Portland's streets, in its shelters and in transitional housing are registered to cast ballots in Multnomah County. That's thanks to a registration drive earlier this month, coordinated past the local newspaper Street Roots.

James Duby, who goes past "Pops," was one of the vendors who helped sign people upward.

"If you want to run across modify, you've got to vox your opinion. Y'all've got to assistance make that change happen," he said.

His first recruit was pretty easy.

"Before nosotros got started, I went ahead and registered to get it out of the style," he said, noting he had been registered in another county prior to moving to the Portland area. "And then I could assistance others."

Raven Drake, the ambassador program manager at Street Roots, ran the registration drive. It involved signing people up at a table outside the paper's Northwest Portland headquarters, every bit well as sending outreach teams into shelters and camps. The biggest hurdle, she said, was clearing a fundamental piece of misinformation.

"Too many people in the houseless community are nether the impression that, because of their status, they don't have that right," Drake said. "And we want to educate them that it'southward the contrary. You lot have the correct, and yous should exercise the right."

It is legal for unhoused people to annals and vote in all 50 states. That said, the logistics of getting a election to someone without a home accost are complicated. In Portland, nonprofits play a key role.

"If you do not have a physical address, at that place are many places where you lot can go, and they volition allow yous to use their address," Duby said. "Street Roots is 1 of them."

People tin can also list the Multnomah County Elections Office as the address on their registration.

Earlier this calendar month, staff at the metropolis'southward and canton'due south Joint Office of Homeless Services sent out an e-mail to service providers and the people they assist, giving communication and information to help people without a permanent address vote. That includes inmates at the Multnomah Canton Jail, serving time for misdemeanor crimes. Nether Oregon law, they are permitted to register and vote from jail.

A spokesman for the elections office confirmed staff have registered "dozens" in recent years. A person convicted of a felony can also vote in Oregon, just simply after completing their sentence. They also must re-register after being released from prison house.

In the end, Street Roots this calendar month registered 125 homeless people to vote in November'due south general election. As of Wednesday, most had picked upwards their ballots. The balance of the unopened, addressed envelopes, roughly xxx, were sitting in a bright orange box in the paper's front office. Staff plan to hand deliver them this week.

Oregon's registration borderline was October. 13, but Drake said those who missed it shouldn't lose hope.

"With this success of this [drive, nosotros're] intending to go on it going twice a year, during every local election," she said.

Duby argued it's never been more important for those on our streets to take a vocalization.

"The homeless population has exploded since this pandemic began," he said. "Little things similar the cigarette taxation… That'due south going to actually touch some people. All the different measures… you've actually got to think are they going to benefit people, or is information technology going to make life harder?"