So, Carla, is it safe to say that NAV is the fastest growing group of voters in Oregon? My youngest just got his notice of registration and I'm proud to say he is also NAV.

The song was released in 1974 by the Hues Corporation a minor pop band from Santa Monica.

I seriously hope the NAV group continues to grow in abundance. It's the only hope we have in Oregon for real and sensible governance.

It's just unfortunate that one can obtain registered voters' home address with a click on an Oregon web site. Public records laws are meant to keep the government accountable, not enable stalkers.

Lack of adequate privacy protection does have a chilling effect on participation in public life. See also HuffPost's Fundrace service, which publishes full name and address data of anyone who contributes $100 or more to a political campaign, and then allows it to be indexed by Google for even more efficient stalking, er, I mean, legitimate research by interested third parties.

Carla, is it possible to get those figures you spoke of? It would indeed be interesting to know who switched from either of the major parties to NAV.

I've been all over the map. As a 20 something in KY I registered democrat. I like to think I did it because in the late 70's to early 90's they were the only real party in the state and otherwise I wasn't really participating in primaries. The real reason is two really good looking young ladies working for John Y. Brown (then running for governor) got me to sign up in Gerstle's one Friday night!

In Washington I was registered as republican because the King County democrats ticked me off. When we moved to Oregon in 1995 I became NAV because I no longer wanted anything to do with either major party.

My son is a new registrant and I'm just glad that he is getting interested in the civic process and voting (finally!)

leinad: What is the defensible reason for revealing the home address of people to anyone on the Internet?

Yes, there are other public records. And the "practical obscurity" of having to go down to the county courthouse, sign in, and ASK for them has been falling away with the advance of public databases, just as it has with the voter registration database in Oregon. The barrier to entry is 20 seconds and a click of the mouse, without having to leave any verifiable record of my inquiry. That's a problem.

But, thanks for dismissing legitimate concerns over the availability of home addresses as "paranoid red herring[s]" and a "right wing fringe attack." Would you post your name home address on a Facebook page, or right here in comments, for all to see? Many wouldn't. But that's exactly what's being done to those who want to register to vote, or donate $100 or more to a political candidate.

I would take this as a pretty strong statement of discontent with both parties in Oregon. Are you D & R types listening?

Carla: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/eim/vr/showVoterSearch.do

Point of order: a birthdate and zip code are required, so this raises the barrier to entry by a minimal degree. But yes, the file IS accessible to anyone on the internet -- not for indexing like HuffPost's FundRace, but for obtaining the home address of any registered voter in Oregon for whom you have a name, birthdate, and a few guesses at a zip code, yes.

Figures, I forgot to replace my name with G. M. on that last post. adjusts tinfoil hat

Carla: Having done some (admittedly incomplete) research, opting out appears to only be available as part of a fledgling program for stalking victims. This raises the question of why one should have to wait to be a victim, but I digress. If you have information indicating that it is, in fact, easy, please let me know.

What you describe as "reasonable barriers" are not. All one needs is a birthdate. This is slightly more restrictive than other databases, yes. But many, many people unwisely place their birthdate in their social networking profiles. The problem is that people don't understand how easily the dots can be connected to lead someone from (for example) a comment in a blog to one's home address. The law has not caught up to protect people's privacy.

You are correct that Google is a bigger problem. This does not support your implication that the existence of the Google problem means that public, unauthenticated access to people's addresses on a government web site is NOT a problem.

Dan: I have no problem being counted -- in aggregate. What I have a problem with is information about where I live being published without my consent. Why, if I do not want my name and address up in lights in Google, is the price being unable to engage in "political speech" by donating $100 or more to a political candidate? Why, if I want to vote, must my residential address be placed behind a very thin veil for any unauthenticated interested party to retrieve on a government-operated web site?

I've received a number of responses in this thread speaking to issues which were raised by the responder, not by me. Nobody has yet given me any reason why disclosing this information to anyone who wants it -- without THEIR having to identify themselves as part of the request -- is a good idea, nor why I should have to submit to it in order to remain enfranchised as a citizen.

How is obtaining a birthdate and clicking through to the address in 10 seconds more difficult than emailing the Secretary of State's office with a records request, having to deal with humans, and waiting for bureaucratic red tape? If you're claiming that a person's birthdate is difficult to obtain, that's an incorrect claim.

I'm suggesting that people's home addresses shouldn't be easily available to any random interested party on the Internet if said people don't want them to be available, particularly when the interested party can obtain the address very easily without being required to leave a personally identifiable record of their inquiry. I'm frankly surprised that the idea that some people don't want their residential address easily available online is not a self-evident basis.

Ha ha. I'm a NAV, and have been since I was a college student. I have voted for a choice few Democrats, some Republicans, and even a Libertarian or two.

True believers gravitate to parties and in turn elect the most orthodox candidates in their closed primaries. The larger the NAV vote is, the more these candidates have to address the fact that merely ass kissing their base is not enough to get elected or get anything done once elected.

As long as there are closed primaries putting up the fringes of the political mainstream, people are going to wish a pox on both of their houses and resort to direct democracy whenever they can.

@boats

Here Here. Couldn't agree more. As I am fond of saying: sometimes liberal | sometime conservative | always independent

To put it in a more positive tone of what would satisfy me: I recognize that there is some value to public records laws, but in this case, they are not being used to keep government accountable.

1. Remove home address from what is disclosed as part of public record, or make it an opt-in choice. By default, I would be comfortable with a disclosure that showed only that I was registered to vote, when I last voted, and what county I'm in.

2. Since campaign donations are considered "speech," and since one presumably speaks in order to be heard, I recognize the value of some information on who "said" what being a matter of public record. Again -- aggregate the data by county. Do not provide finer grained detail such as street address or ZIP code.

3. Require people making inquiries to submit authenticated (ie, proven to a reasonable degree of accuracy not to be fake) personally identifying information when they make an inquiry, making it possible for the subject of the inquiry to retrieve in an automated manner whenever they choose. Want to look up my address? You provide your address. This is of course less important if the personally identifying information includes only a county of residence.

Why bother voting? We passed Measure 57 and the same Democrats who referred it promptly gutted it with HB 3508. Aren't we supposed to be the party keeping faith with the voters?

"Why bother voting? We passed Measure 57 and the same Democrats who referred it promptly gutted it with HB 3508. Aren't we supposed to be the party keeping faith with the voters?"

Should we have cut funding for state police, crime lab, etc. in order to implement Measure 57 as written?

If not, quit acting like the "tough on crime" vote was to implement 57, no matter what else needed to be cut.

27,000 left the Dem party!? Told Ya! Facism won't last, thank god.

M-57? Lose police, etc, etc,

This state WASTES over $200 MILLION/yr. on Bilingual not really Education, that the U.S. Supreme court just ruled does NOT work as IMMERSION does, they agreed. There's the money to lock up Criminals, but obviously Dem's would rather build bike paths and let ID thieves run free.

And with over 12% UNemloyment, D's did nothing about Illegal laiens stealing what jobs are left.

Bye Bye D's, Your Kingdome here and in CA. is crumbling, YOUR policies didn't work for the USSR etiher.

Rick Hickley, Don't be fooled! The real fascism hasn't started yet. After ACORN steals a few more elections in 2010, there will be a major "discovery" of a "conservative gene". Registered Republicans will be forced to take a blood test, and those that "fail" (all of them) will be taken to the Homeland Security camps for "reeducation". You need to start the Race War Now! Otherwise, Congress will pass laws against conservatives that will make Nazi Germany look like a liberal paradise! Pleas contact Glenn Beck and spread the news!

What I find funny is that GM (Gordon) probably fully supported the Patriot act, yet is now acutely concerned about privacy.

The fall in Democratic registrations is easy to explain. Most Obama voters resurrected by ACORN have now returned to the realm of the dead. They'll undoubtedly be back when needed.

As someone who has registered NAV in the past and may do so after any primary if I so choose, I think people who leave major parties are fed up with the bipolar nature of too much political debate.

Boats, have you run into an actual ACORN activist in Oregon, or is that just a red herring?

It was this little thing called a joke.

HB 3508, gutting M57, was the greatest gift that we could possibly give Kevin Mannix. Not only did we break faith with the voters, we have enabled him to pass even more regressive measures. It may have been penny wise for this biennium, but it will be pound foolish in the next cycle.

Besides, ODAA came up with a solution that would have saved the money WITHOUT gutting M57. Chip Shields and company wouldn't give them the time of day. Once the will of the voters is clear, we should respect it, whether or not we agree with it. There will be a price to pay.

mlw, what would you have cut to implement Measure 57? State Police, courts, crime lab, or human services?

"HB 3508, gutting M57, was the greatest gift that we could possibly give Kevin Mannix. Not only did we break faith with the voters, we have enabled him to pass even more regressive measures. It may have been penny wise for this biennium, but it will be pound foolish in the next cycle.

Besides, ODAA came up with a solution that would have saved the money WITHOUT gutting M57. Chip Shields and company wouldn't give them the time of day. Once the will of the voters is clear, we should respect it, whether or not we agree with it. There will be a price to pay."

What was the ODAA solution? And do you really believe that at the end of this decade the popularity of Kevin Mannix swamps the popularity of any elected official?

Mr. "tough on crime no new taxes" is involved in the effort to overturn the 2 tax measures by referral, isn't he--didn't I read that somewhere? If for any reason that effort is not successful, Mannix will again be able to impose his will on Oregon and no one can stop him? Are his out of state funders still providing money for anything and everything Mannix does?

None of the above. The ODAA proposal involved sentence cuts on the end of sentences using the kind of pragmatic and individual evaluation of prisoners that DOC should be doing. Thus, it did not involve the cuts you suggest to other budget items.

Let's face the reality here - the very people who brokered the deal for M57 last session are the same ones who wanted to gut it this time. They never liked it, although 61% of the voters did, and they wanted to gut it ASAP. They'll try again next session. That's not fiscal responsibility. That's the kind of elitist disdain for the will of the voters that Mannix will use to get something even worse than M61 passed next time. As for "imposing his will" on the Oregon voters, they're the ones who pass his measures. Don't blame him for being smart enough to know how to appeal to the voters, blame us for not having the brains to know how to do it better than him.

After looking at the data for registered voters, perhaps the real message is that there is an exodus from Oregon taking place. Where are these folks going? A loose count would indicate about 50,000 fewer registered voters. Given a normal distribution that wouold indicate many have children and this would then translate to fewer in our public education system as well.

Remends me of the Billy Joel song, "Allentown"

"The ODAA proposal involved sentence cuts on the end of sentences using the kind of pragmatic and individual evaluation of prisoners that DOC should be doing. "

They are a lobbying group just like any other lobbying group, and in the end, legislators decide which proposals to support. Was there ever an estimation of the FTE of staff time needed to do "the kind of pragmatic and individual evaluation of prisoners" you speak of?

MLW, if you really believe (as someone said on TV last night in another context) that the past predicts the future, then you are right.

" Mannix will use to get something even worse than M61 passed next time. As for "imposing his will" on the Oregon voters, they're the ones who pass his measures. "

Did you even watch the hearings or the floor debate on this?

And btw, in putting Measure 57 on the ballot, the legislature was following one of the proposals of the Public Comm. on the Legislature: meeting in even numbered years and putting an alternative on the ballot if they thought something gathering signatures could seriously impact the budget.

I have known Kevin Mannix for over a quarter of a century. I suspect that there might be Oregonians who are tired of him, his campaigns for office, his out-of-state funded ballot measures. The rules for collecting signatures are stricter than they once were.

You may believe that the best government comes from ballot measures, but I believe that legislators have the right to have a say in these things.

I voted for Measure 57, I like the drug treatment provisions.

What I don't like is being told that "the voters" passed something so that even though I voted for 57, I have no right to express my opinion because "the voters have spoken".

Whatever happened to we the people having the right to express individual opinions?

On July 4 this is a great time to have a debate on this from the Declaration of Independence:

"to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, "

The Constitution begins "We the people..."

Here's the question--do individuals have the right to disagree with one another, or are "consent of the governed" and "we the people" about everyone conforming and acting like a single celled organism (or Borg, for Star Trek fans) where dissent is frowned upon or punished?

I happen to believe we are allowed to be individual dissidents if we so choose. I have certainly been called enough names over the years because I didn't not support a "popular" candidate or idea.

If Kevin Mannix really ran this state, he'd be an elected official, but how many elections has he lost?

And in 2009, who defines "tough on crime"? Is it someone famous for running unpaid-for ballot measures and for losing elections?

Or could it possibly be AG Kroger?

If there was ever a disagreement between them, I'd go with Kroger. Can anyone possibly be believed if they said Kroger is "soft on crime" merely for disagreeing with the great Kevin Mannix?

Unlike Mannix, Kroger understands the need to pay for proposals.

LT, so your argument is that the voters should be grateful that the D's, in their superior wisdom, overrode the desires of 61% of the people? Besides, they gutted the treatment money immediately, with NO debate. If they were being honest, why didn't they have the debate about treatment vs punishment then, in February?

I'm no Mannix fan, but you're putting your head in the sand if you think his proposals aren't popular. The legislators who opposed M57 this session also hate M11, but they're smart enough to know that M11 remains popular with the voters. Why haven't we come up with similarly popular alternatives?

I've now been accused of supporting the PATRIOT Act (murrayoperi) and told that my concerns are "just another paranoid red herring that sounds just like a stupid Michelle Bachman fringe right wing attack on open government" (leinad), simply because I've expressed concerns with the posting of people's personal data online if they wish to vote or contribute money to political campaigns. This is amazing.

When the PATRIOT Act was new news, in my spare time I did a web site and flyers for the first and only anti-PATRIOT group in my town on the East Coast. This led directly to newspaper coverage and a highly unexpected turnout at their initial meetings. And I first became concerned about having my address spammed all over Google when HuffPost put it up for the world to see after I donated a significant sum to a Democratic candidate a few years back when I was a college student without steady income.

I still use a copy of the anti-PATRIOT site in my portfolio, even though the group is now dissolved and the site was fairly small, because I'm proud of it. Kari might even remember it from when I applied for a job at Mandate Media a couple years back. I applied for that job because I was excited about a potential position at a lefty web development firm.

murrayoperi, leinad: maybe you two should be a little more careful about painting me as a right-wing nutjob simply because I'm concerned about my privacy. Thus far you're done little else than prove the axiom that participating in comments in ANY online venue is like throwing crap at the ceiling. My advice: head on back to Youtube comments. They'll welcome you with open arms.

Carla: Thanks for engaging in honest discussion with me on this topic. For now, though, I'm done.

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