One week later, no response from Richardson, Oregon GOP on Cambridge Analytica ties
April 5, 2018
PORTLAND — Following news yesterday from Facebook that the personal information of up 87 million users was improperly accessed by Cambridge Analytica, the Democratic Party of Oregon is renewing their call for Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and the Oregon GOP to explain their ties to the voter profiling organization.
“Oregonians are right to be disturbed by the ties between our current chief elections official and Cambridge Analytica,” said Jeanne Atkins, chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon and former Oregon Secretary of State. “Secretary Richardson was elected by the people of Oregon and he must be held accountable to their questions and concerns.”
Since news broke in mid-March that Cambridge Analytica was involved in illegal mining of social media data in order to influence the 2016 presidential election, further coverage has indicated that executives in the international consulting firm have taken credit for their effectiveness at delivering the election for President Trump.
“It is quite possible that Cambridge Analytica is in part responsible for irreversibly disrupting American democracy,” said Atkins. “This is incredibly difficult news to swallow but it must be taken seriously. That this same business was in Oregon two years prior, working with Republicans like Art Robinson and Dennis Richardson, also must be taken seriously.”
The DPO’s release from last week highlighting the questions raised by the troubling relationships between Richardson, Robinson, and Analytica can be found here. Richardson has come under fire in the past for unconventional email tactics, including his use of public records requests to add over 400,000 Oregonians to his email lists in 2014 — the same year he hired Cambridge Analytica for a “microtargeting survey."
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