When my Oregon primary election ballot arrived in the mail and I unfolded it, my first thought was: This won’t take long.

My second thought was whether to bother. But that stray idea passed quickly.

My ballot, slight as it is, does matter, and even when it’s not packed with critical inflection points, the decisions on it can have real impact.

I’m in the largest plurality of Oregon voters, those registered as not affiliated with any party. Since a lot of the interest in primary elections concerns choosing party nominees, especially for major parties, I’m a non-participant in a lot of the action this season.

That’s worth noting because 1.1 million Oregonians are in my boat, considerably more than the next-largest group, the Democrats, fewer than a million. Many registrants of the smaller parties have little role this season, either. State law bars all of those people from joining in critical partisan primary contests: You have to be registered with a party to obtain a ballot with those choices.

For unaffiliated voters, a ballot looks like this: Some local government races and some judicial seats, mostly uncontested, and occasionally a ballot issue. In Oregon, the highest-profile of those may be the bond ask for the Portland zoo.

In the case of the uncontested offices featuring only a single name – the norm for most judicial and many local government offices outside the metro areas – a voter can withhold support from a candidate but realistically has little chance of affecting the outcome. For many unaffiliated voters, ballot issues are the main reason to cast a vote at all.

Oregon is one of only nine states to limit primary participation, and citizens here have brought forth a number of proposals to open its primary elections to those not registered with a party.

Still, the group All Oregon Votes, which has backed open primaries in Oregon and filed an initiative proposal for the 2024 general election, said in February, it has “paused work on 2024 Initiative Petition 26 to focus on more promising strategies to enfranchise voters in Oregon.” Those other strategies weren’t specified. The group, which has been trying since 2020 to put a measure on the ballot, has run up against conflicts with state officials over ballot titles, which the group said left the intent of the measure unclear for voters.

Meanwhile, many major party members are seeing slim ballots, too. The presidential nominating process, which often drives primary turnout in presidential years, is effectively done – long before Oregon voters got a chance to weigh in. Only one Republican, Donald Trump, is even on the ballot, and the Democratic contest is just about over as well.

Two congressional districts do have heated primary contests, those being in the 3rd and the 5th districts, both on the Democratic side. The race in the 5th District does have serious national implications, because in the fall it may be among the handful determining whether the Republicans or Democrat will control the U.S. House next term.

And legislative primary contests are sprinkled all over the state. But for many voters, there’s still little there.

So why bother, especially for unaffiliated voters??

In my case, the ballot has several unopposed judicial races and several unopposed local offices – little to debate about there. But the main reason I wasted no time filling out and turning in the ballot was the one race on it which is contested.

This is a battle, a real political knock-down, for one of the three Yamhill County Commission seats. The incumbent seeking re-election is locally controversial enough to have been the subject, a few years back, of a recall attempt. She prevailed then, but not by much, 52.5% to 47.5%, and she hasn’t won office by much more than that.

Many commission races in Yamhill County in recent years have been similarly close. And this season’s contest, in which she has two challengers, may be another. One of those contenders hasn’t been seriously active, but the other has been running a highly energetic campaign, and local conventional wisdom is split on the probable outcome. As in many Oregon counties, the seats are officially non-partisan, but they party they belong to is an open secret.

In theory, it’s a race that could go down to a single vote. I wouldn’t want it to go what I consider to be the wrong way because I failed to vote.

Local Oregon ballots have lots of individual races like that, and they all matter.  So, look closely at your ballot. It may offer more chances to make a difference than you initially think.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Republican primary contests this year in many states – Washington and Idaho for two –  have evolved into battles between traditional conservatives and more uncompromising activist and often Trumpist groups.

Oregon is mostly an exception.

The state has no lack of Republican primary contests, five in the state Senate and 10 in the House, with about four times as many House seats are up for election. While some candidates identify themselves along the lines of former President Donald Trump, few do so very explicitly.

The reasons why aren’t clear. The state’s late presidential primary, which will feature only Trump on the Republican side, may have lowered the attention level a little in Oregon at the local level. Maybe, too, Oregon’s nature is more inclined to focus on local concerns and individual personalities.

Oregon’s Republican contests seem at least to have evolved that way.

That holds true for the statewide and ideologically-oriented Republican Unity Caucus PAC, which has become involved in Republican primary contests, one of the few state organizations to do so. Its finances are not massive, with it reporting so far less than $17,000 in either contributions or spending for the primary. It describes itself as “uniting activists and legislators to empower the Freedom Movement in Oregon,” and does not get much more specific from there, freeing it to act in the primaries however seems desirable.

Its most visible activity concerns incumbent Republican Sen. David Brock Smith of Port Orford, who is facing three primary opponents for his southern coastal seat, with logger Todd Vaughn winning RUC backing. The PAC’s blasts at Brock Smith led to cease-and-desist letters from Brock Smith’s attorney with indications that he might sue over what he described as false campaign statements. The complaints against Brock Smith are hard to parse, but seem to argue that he was too supportive of Democratic initiatives and might have been helping a Chinese businessman.

Brock Smith describes himself as a staunch conservative, and RUC leader Ben Edtl said his group is “bound by America First values.” The group’s core complaint against Brock Smith remains unclear.

RUC also weighed in on the Republican primary in House District 51 in Clackamas County. With no Democrats filing, the seat will go to Christine Drazan, who represented the area before resigning when she ran for governor in 2022, or James Hieb, who was appointed to replace her and now is the incumbent. The PAC described Drazan, the Republican governor nominee two years ago, as “supported by special interest groups who want to continue their agenda of socializing housing and health care and continue to undermine election integrity and local democratic control of our school districts.” Hieb, it said, had begun his legislative term similarly but then “he began an assent to fearlessly representing his voters.” The reasons for involvement never get much more specific.

The Unity Caucus seems to be about as large a group as has become involved in the many Republican primaries.

In only one case among the 15 Republican primary contests was a significant policy difference between two candidates clearly central. That is in House District 12 in rural Lane County where incumbent Rep. Charlie Conrad of Dexter faces a challenge by Darin Harbick over Conrad’s  vote in 2023 for a Democratic-backed reproductive health care bill. Conrad went against his party on the bill, which sparked a Republican Senate walkout that lasted for six weeks. Harbick told the Capital Chronicle: “When I found out that my state representative (was) the only Republican in Oregon who voted with the rest of the Democrats on that bill, I was outraged because I do not believe that is what House District 12 represents,” Harbick said. “That was kind of a catalyst that put me into running a primary against Representative Conrad.”

Most of the candidate differences, however, relate more to approach to the job than to policy or even personality differences.

In Senate District 2, which includes Josephine and parts of Douglas and Jackson counties, incumbent Art Robinson was legally barred from running again, so his son Noah Robinson has filed to replace him. He is opposed by current Rep. Christine Goodwin of Canyon City. She told the Capital Chronicle:  “I filed because the threat of another Robinson was frightening to me.” She said the elder Robinson only opposed bills while she said she would compromise, when necessary, to find solutions. The thread of practical legislating against an uncompromising edge runs through several races. In the coastal House District 32, where incumbent Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook is rematched against Glenn Gaither of Seaside, Javadi talks about working across the aisle, while Gaither’s message does have clear echoes of a Trump-like view but in the context of being uncompromising.

At least one other House race is specifically shaped around the background of the incumbent, in this case the longest-serving House Republican, Greg Smith of Heppner in eastern Oregon. Challenger Raymond Akers drew on headlines about Smith’s extensive private-sector but government-related contracts, chronicled by Malheur Enterprise, and said on his Facebook page that “while Greg is out and about telling about all of his corporate endorsements (voters should) hold his feet to the fire (since) you may not see him again for many years.”

On the day after primary election day, Oregon Republicans – and political analysts – may have a hard time drawing any sweeping conclusions about what the party’s voters want. Whatever it is, apart from liking or disliking their incumbents, they won’t have a lot of room to express it on the ballot.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.