Oregon Forced to Shut Down Critical Election Phone Line After Trump Supporters Spread False Rumor About State

The Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division was forced to halt its phone lines on Thursday after receiving numerous calls from enraged supporters of Donald Trump following the online spread of misinformation.

The callers, who were largely phoning in from out-of-state, expressed their frustration at the former President's discussion on the state's voters' pamphlet. In reality, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, are included in the pamphlet. They are listed alongside a disclaimer indicating that the Trump campaign refused to provide a statement for the pamphlet, limiting his own inclusion into the document.

The Oregon Republican Party also released a statement explaining Trump's apparent absence from the voters' guide, indicating that the Republican presidential ticket will still appear on the ballot come November.

"Many people are wondering why no campaign statement from President Donald J. Trump was included in the Oregon Voters' Guide which arrived in Oregonians' mailboxes this week. The decision not to submit a statement was made by the Trump campaign earlier this year," they wrote. "Rest assured: President Trump WILL be on your ballot, along with other strong, common-sense Republican candidates."

Despite this, Trump supporters buying into misinformation continued to overwhelm the Secretary of State Elections Division's phone lines, forcing them to shut them down despite having issued numerous explanations for the voters' guide.

"Why isn't Donald Trump in the voters' pamphlet?" wrote the office on X (formerly Twitter). "Our office doesn't decide which candidates appear in the voters' pamphlet. Instead, the candidates decide whether to submit a statement and we publish them exactly as they are submitted."

"Oregonians who need assistance will now have to wait because some individuals operating in bad faith are misleading people online," Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said in a news release. "Spreading rumors and false claims of election interference does nothing to help Oregonians."