Today the Oregonian published an op-ed by a person complaining about his experience with the IPO. We have sent this response to The Oregonian.

Dear Oregonian:

You today published an op-ed by Will Nunn about his experience with the Independent Party of Oregon. His assertions are not accurate.    Read more ...

Mr. Nunn complains about not receiving a website password for greater access to the Independent Party website. After receiving his request, the IPO Secretary used U.S. Mail to mail a website password to him. For security reasons, to assure a request is legitimate, the website password is mailed to the voter at the address on file with the Secretary of State. Later, Mr. Nunn contacted us by email on August 2, 2010, stating that he had not received the website password in the mail, because the U.S. Postal Service--at his request--does not deliver mail to that address. Note that the website password only enables the user to use the website to submit legislative ideas to the IPO (which can also be done by email); it has nothing to do with voting in the IPO primary election or taking part in our frequent issues surveys or accessing any of the information about the IPO.

We responded to his email within 6 minutes, offering him a way to change the address on his voter registration so that he could receive our mail. Our response, which provided the IPO Chair's home address and personal email address for further contact, stated:

"Our lists of registered Independent Party voters and addresses was supplied by the Secretary of State, Elections Division, which compiles the lists sent by county elections officers. If there is an error, the records of the Secretary of State are not correct and you may make the correction online. No one else can change your official registration. https://secure.sos.state.or.us/eim/vr/register.do?lang=eng

Be sure to check `Not a member of a party' if you do not want to register with a political party."

We included that last statement, because Mr. Nunn's letter closed with this: "So if you want me to be a member, figure out a way I can enter the forum and debate, otherwise I shall re-register as an `unaffiliated' voter."

We were simply telling him how to re-register as an unaffiliated voter, as he claimed he may want do to that.

We also reached him by phone and provided him with a website password.

Mr. Nunn incorrectly states that it was the IPO's delay that caused him to miss "the opportunity to vote in the IPO's groundbreaking Internet primary." In fact, his first inquiry to us was by email on August 2, 2010, which was 3 days after our Internet primary had ended. The primary election was open from July 8 through July 30. We sent unique voting passcodes in June 2010 to our 54,000 members at each of their voter registration addresses. Mr. Nunn did not contact us about not receiving that postcard; his email was about not receiving the website password. He claims that he sent us a letter with photocopies of his driver's license, auto registration, voter registration card and several utility bills. We received no such letter by fax or mail or email. He stated in his August 2 email that he "will be glad to send you copies of my Driver's license" and the other documents mentioned, which indicates that he certainly did not send those to us prior to August 2. Even so, August 2 was well after the IPO primary election had closed, so receiving those documents after August 2 would have been meaningless.

Mr. Nunn claims that during the 8-9 months he was an IPO member, there was no "attempt to communicate with me" or "send me any party information or allow me access to do so on my own." First, he received prompt responses to email he sent, and our Party Secretary also reached him both by email and by phone and provided the website passcode he requested. Second, even without a website password, he had full access to all party information on the website. Third, he did not sign up on the website to receive email from us (see the yellow box at http://indparty.com), and we try to avoid sending unsolicited emails. We have been sending about 20 emails per year to anyone who signs up.

He claims we have no platform, which is easily refuted by referring to our homepage at http://indparty.com.

As for joining the IPO by mistake, as he now claims, no one can join the party without checking the box for "Independent Party" on the voter registration form. As his original email to us stated that he had joined by mistake, we provided him with the link to the online voter registration form so he could unjoin the Party.