Clatsop County Clerk Tracie Krevanko loves a lot about her job.
She enjoys performing civil wedding ceremonies, legally binding two people to one another from the comfort of her county office. She loves the variety of it; she licenses cats and dogs and oversees the recordings of land deeds.
But her favorite part of the gig is overseeing elections.
“I love working in elections … I could retire, but I don’t want to, and I hope to continue to feel that way,” she said, adding that she relishes keeping up on the constantly changing election laws, working with the Legislature and generally just performing her “civic duty” to uphold, well, democracy.
“We are protecting the right for people to vote,” Krevanko said. " Our goal is that any eligible person can vote and their vote is counted and it’s accurate.”
In the last two years, thanks largely to former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, public scrutiny shifted to secretaries of state — the people who oversee elections on a statewide level. Previously, these statewide roles have largely been ignored, often viewed as a stepping stone to higher office. But now, across the country, it’s become much more competitive with political parties noting it will be secretaries of state who oversee the 2024 presidential contest. (Recall President Trump’s call urging Brad Reffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to win there.)
But drill down a layer.
The real...
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