10/17/08 Bend

(Photos:  Brown, Dancer, Woolley)

Secretary of State, the second highest ranking constitutional officer in Oregon is up for grabs in November as Democrat Bill Bradbury leaves office after nine years.  Three candidates, Democrat Kate Brown, Republican Rick Dancer and Green Party Candidate Seth Woolley are seeking change.

"My top priority is to crack down on fraud and abuse in Oregon's initiative system. And I want to fight to put integrity back into Oregon's initiative system," Brown says.

"Number one is to make it non-partisan. It needs to be a non partisan office so that the person who is Secretary of State is not representing their party but instead representing the people of Oregon," says Dancer.

"I also believe strongly in opening access to the ballot, and opening access to government information and allowing people to rank their candidates in order of preference to ensure to actually have a majority that decides the vote instead of a minority" Woolley says.

Secretary of State is first in line of succession to the Governor as well as auditor of public accounts, chief elections officer, administrator of public records along with chairing the Oregon State Land Board and Oregon Sustainability Board.   One of the duties includes re-districting which is an often controversial process.

"We should make it a tri or quad partisan position, get all different parties involved with this with me heading that organization and then we go out and we re-draw those lines, and we make them based on community interest," Dancer says.

"Take the ORS, the Oregon statues and 188.010, it's very explicit on how it should be done, and we can actually enter that in a computer system with the census data, with ethnic backgrounds and community information and actually draw the boundaries in a fair, unbiased way,"  Woolley says.

"I would empanel and independent committee to advise me, non-partisan committee to be my check and balance and I would also make sure we have extensive public hearings around the state so to the extent possible we can keep communities together in a legislative re-districting plan," Brown says.

With the election three weeks away, all three candidates are busy traveling the state to reach as many people as possible.