It will take Clackamas County until at least Monday, 13 days past Election Day, to finish duplicating ballots marred by a printing error so that final results can be tallied, according to a plan from the county’s top election official.
Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall submitted the plan to the state late Tuesday after Secretary of State Shemia Fagan repeatedly demanded that Hall provide a clear timeline and strategy for how Hall’s office will finish processing ballots amid ongoing delays.
Hall’s lack of action when she first learned that tens of thousands of ballots were marred by blurry barcodes has left the outcome of multiple primary races hanging and sullied the reputation of Oregon’s celebrated vote-by-mail system. As of Tuesday night, Clackamas County had reported only tallying 60,230 of 116,045 ballots it had received, or 52%.
Hall, who earns an annual salary of $112,700, said county workers duplicated 7,543 ballots Monday. As of 7 p.m. on Monday, the county had 38,381 more ballots to duplicate, Hall said.
In her plan filed with the state, Hall said teams of two people with different party affiliations will fill two five-hour shifts a day, with between 41 and 164 people signed up to work each day. She wrote that she anticipates those teams will be able to duplicate 20 ballots an hour. At that rate, the county will have to work into Monday to finish duplicating the remaining marred ballots.
On Wednesday, Fagan’s office released daily benchmarks it expects Clackamas County to meet based on the plan Hall provided. Those benchmarks also show Clackamas County finishing the duplication process by Monday, assuming that the estimated number of ballots needing duplication is accurate.
Fagan estimates it will take Clackamas until June 2 to finish counting results of the 56,000 ballots yet to be tallied as of Tuesday evening. Her office said it expects Hall’s office will only be able to tabulate results from about 6,200 ballots per day, but it did not explain the rationale behind that low daily estimate. The county has reported that it has tallied more than 10,000 ballots on its best days. The statutory deadline is June 13.
Elections officials, including Fagan, have expressed confidence the final vote tallies will be accurate and that Clackamas County’s methods for copying voters’ ballot markings into fresh ballots so they can be counted is reliable. But the delays undermine voter confidence, Hall has acknowledged.
Elections staff from both Marion and Washington counties have offered to help out in Clackamas, but Hall said she has not opted to deploy workers from those counties at this time. Currently, Clackamas County elections staff and volunteers and other county workers, along with a small number of state employees, are duplicating ballots.
It remains unclear how many ballots the county duplicated before Election Day. Hall had estimated that two-thirds of ballots had blurred barcodes and would need to be duplicated, with the error mainly affecting Democratic ballots.
The county did not answer questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive seeking clarification on the total number of ballots marred with the printing error, a timeline for how long it will take to process the ballots once they are duplicated and the added cost the county has incurred.
County spokesperson Kimberly Dinwiddie-Webb said in an email Wednesday afternoon that about 25 protesters had gathered at the county elections office. She said the protesters weren’t interfering with ballot counting and there were no security concerns, but said the demonstration would impede the county’s ability to timely respond to media questions.
Protesters expressed concerns about vote-by-mail and the lengthy vote counting process. They brought signs that read “stop the steal” and “hands off my ballot.”
Multiple election results hang in the balance due to the delays in Clackamas County, including the nationally-watched 5th Congressional District race in which incumbent U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader appears to have lost to progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner, at least two seats in the Oregon House, two hotly contested county commission races and the presidency of regional government Metro.
