Timeline of Oregon county’s ballot tally remains uncertain

PORTLAND, Ore. — Three weeks after Oregon’s third-largest county realized {that a} majority of their ballots had blurry barcodes and have been unreadable by vote-counting machines, state officers have but to obtain a written plan detailing how the county will full the tally by June 13, the deadline to certify election outcomes.

As frustrations proceed to develop and the outcomes of a key U.S. Home race hangs within the steadiness, Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan met with Clackamas County’s prime election officers Monday. She acquired a verbal replace on the county’s progress, however continues to attend on a full written plan that outlines benchmarks and a timeline exhibiting how lengthy it’ll take to duplicate the county’s ballots by hand.

“I continued to push them and can proceed to push them to offer a written plan with common benchmarks in order that I, you and the general public can affirm that they’re on monitor to supply well timed outcomes,” Fagan stated throughout a information convention Tuesday.

Tens of hundreds of ballots in Oregon’s third-largest county have been printed with blurred barcodes, making them unreadable by vote-counting machines — a mistake that wasn’t caught till ballots have been already being returned within the vote-by-mail state. Elections staff should now hand-transfer the votes from these ballots to new ones that may be learn in a painstaking course of that additionally raises the opportunity of duplication errors.

Clackamas County Elections Clerk Sherry Corridor estimates that as much as two-thirds — about 73,000 of the roughly 115,000 ballots acquired by the county to date — have been affected.

The debacle has angered many in Oregon, the place all ballots have been solid solely by mail for 23 years and lawmakers have constantly pushed to broaden voter entry via computerized voter registration and expanded deadlines. It’s additionally thrown into query a key U.S. Home race in a district that features a giant portion of Clackamas County, which stretches practically 2,000 sq. miles (5,180 sq. kilometers), from Portland’s liberal southern suburbs to rural conservative communities on the flanks of Mount Hood.

Outcomes for the Democratic main for Oregon’s fifth Congressional District — the place seven-term Rep. Kurt Schrader, a average, is trailing within the vote behind progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner – are slowly trickling in. The result may have an outsized affect in November, with the chance that voters may flip the seat for the GOP.

With a view to full the tally by June 13, practically 200 county workers have been redeployed from their regular duties to hand-transfer the voter’s intent to a contemporary poll that might be scanned. As of Monday barely greater than half of the ballots — 57,550 — had been tallied, in response to knowledge offered by Clackamas County.

The difficulty in Clackamas County got here to gentle Could 3, when staff put the primary ballots returned via the vote-counting machine. About 70 or 80 ballots from every batch of 125 have been spit out as unreadable. It was too late to print and mail new ballots, in response to Corridor, who didn’t “proof” the printed ballots earlier than they have been mailed out.

State elections officers say they’ve little authority over native county elections officers, who function independently and are beholden to voters. Corridor is up for reelection in November after holding the job since 2003.