Oregon’s statewide election town hall series will continue Tuesday evening in Gresham, bringing the second public forum in Secretary of State Tobias Read’s Oregon Votes Town Hall series to the Portland metropolitan area as preparations continue for the November general election.
The September 8 gathering follows the series opener held September 3 in Bend, where state and local officials met with residents for a public discussion centered on Oregon elections, vote-by-mail procedures and voter participation. The Gresham forum continues that statewide outreach with another panel of elected officials and an opportunity for members of the public to submit questions directly to participants.
Tuesday’s town hall will be held from 6 to 7 p.m. at the East County Library Auditorium, 475 NW Division Street in Gresham. Read will be joined by U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, state Sen. Chris Gorsek and state Rep. Ricki Ruiz. Garrett Andrews, a reporter with Willamette Week and adjunct professor at Portland Community College, will moderate the discussion.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office describes the town hall series as a nonpartisan public discussion intended to explain how elections are administered in Oregon and provide voters with information about ensuring their ballots are properly counted. The format also gives attendees an opportunity to hear directly from election officials and other public representatives during an election season in which voting procedures, mail ballot processing and election administration have remained prominent statewide subjects.
Members of the public may register for the Gresham event through the Secretary of State’s Office and may submit questions for the panel before the meeting. Registration remains available until the event begins. The East County Library also provides a dedicated parking garage with 71 spaces, while additional parking is available across the street at the Gresham City Hall lot.
The Oregon Votes Town Hall initiative began in Bend with Read appearing alongside Sen. Anthony Broadman, Reps. Emerson Levy and Jason Kropf and Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison. That event established the format for a series designed to take election-related discussions outside Salem and place state election officials before residents in communities around Oregon.
Additional Oregon Votes events are expected as the November election approaches. The Secretary of State’s community engagement calendar lists a North Bend town hall for September 24 and another gathering in Portland on October 6, extending the public meeting schedule into the final weeks before the general election.
For Gresham residents and voters elsewhere in the Portland metropolitan area, Tuesday’s meeting represents the next scheduled opportunity in the series to ask questions about Oregon election administration directly before ballots move closer to voters and the state enters the final stages of the 2026 general election calendar.