Officials say Oregon GOP statement was 29 seconds late, won’t appear in voter’s guide

The official statement of the Oregon Republican party won’t appear in the state’s voter’s guide because it arrived seconds after deadline, officials said.

“Anyone wishing to submit information to the Voters’ Pamphlet has several weeks to do so and we recommend avoiding waiting until the last minute for this reason,” Laura Fosmire, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Bev Clarno, said in a statement to The Associated Press. 

The party’s statement arrived just 29 seconds too late, according to The AP. 

Oregon GOP communications director Kevin Hoar, however, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he party got its statement into an online filing system by 4:59 p.m. on Aug. 25, the final day for filing.  

Hoar said the party filed a lawsuit in Marion County demanding the statement be included in the voters’ guide before it goes to print later this month. 

“We can’t quite explain the interpretation and decision here,” Hoar told the outlet. “That’s why we’ve gone to court.”

Hoar also said that Republican Chairman Bill Currier was locked out of the online filing system for several hours, delaying the party’s ability to file its statement. 

Currier slammed the decision in a statement to Oregon Public Radio, claiming it “reeks of partisan discrimination.” 

“If a bureaucrat in some decision-making role simply didn’t like what our statement said, this doesn’t give them the right to silence us,” Currier said in the statement. 

Fosmire told the outlet there were “no problems or glitches” with the online reporting system, adding the office “simply received the statement after the filing deadline.” 

Clarno is the only Republican in statewide office. The Republican secretary of state also served in Oregon’s state House and state Senate, serving in leadership positions in both. 

The Democratic Party of Oregon and six other political parties are included in the voters’ pamphlet for the Nov. 3 election, according to the reports.