It is election day. That means that the approximately 1/3rd of Oregonians registered to vote who have not cast their ballots have until 8 p.m. today, Nov. 3, to vote.
So far, well over 130,000 voters in Marion County have voted. All ballots cast by Marion County voters are processed at 555 Court St., Salem, Oregon, the Marion County Clerk’s office.
Although Oregon is a vote-by-mail state, every county has several dropboxes for people who opt to drop-off their ballots in-person or who missed the mail-in deadline last week. There is also a single polling place in Marion County, which is the County Clerk’s office. This polling place provides a socially distant space to fill out a ballot. If someone has COVID-19 or has been exposed recently, staff members can meet them outside so that they can complete a ballot.
The County Clerk’s office can also resolve any ballot issues. They can issue a new ballot if needed as every ballot has a specific tracking number. This means that the clerk’s office can ensure that the person’s ballot has not been cast prior to issuing a new ballot. The worker can bring up the database and mark their previous ballot as invalid through this tracking system.
Voters can track their ballot themselves at the Oregon Secretary of State’s website. If their ballot is not received and was sent more than a week prior, the ballot may be lost in the mail and voters can get a replacement ballot from the County Clerk’s office and have the previous one invalidated.
Bill Burgess, the Marion County Clerk since 2005, says that the office works hard to ensure that everyone who wants to vote has access, including people with disabilities. They can email ballots to people with disabilities so that software can read it for them and they can print it to fill out. The office can provide tactile ballots made of cloth and an audio recording of the information, so that blind people can fill out ballots. They can also provide big print ballots to those who have difficulty seeing.
In this election, there are 144 different types of ballot templates for voters in Marion County alone. Each ballot template has different races and measures that are customized depending on their area. Burgess says that in primary elections they can have over 600 ballot templates.
Election officials are currently working to scan ballots to prepare for providing election results. Despite all this work, an influx of ballots is expected on election day and more ballots will arrive post election day, including from people who needed to recertify their signature. That means that final vote tallies won’t be done on election day, which is normal. Trends might be identified, but those can sometimes prove inaccurate.
Burgess says that when ballots arrive, they are first scanned through a machine, stamped and pre-sorted into groups of precincts. This machine also checks signatures on the envelope against the signature on file. According to Burgess, approximately 60% of signatures can be matched by the computer alone. The other 40% are verified by person.
If the machine flags a signature, election workers verify it by looking at other signatures on file to see if there is a clear signature progression. Burgess says that 8 out of 10 signatures originally flagged can be matched this way. If a signature cannot be verified, or the ballot is not signed, the voter is notified and has 14 days to resolve the issue.
After a signature check, the ballots are run through the machine again and the envelopes are cut open so that the ballot can be counted. Then the ballots are given to pairs of election workers. Each pair is comprised of members of different political parties. They work in pairs so that one person sees the name and the other sees how they voted, keeping who people voted for confidential. One member opens the envelope. The other member scans the ballot to see if there is any writing.
If there is writing on the ballot it must be manually checked to make sure that the write-in votes are counted or if people changed their vote to make sure the correct vote is processed. If there is no writing, the ballot is placed in the auto resolve stack.
Next the ballots are taken to a room of computers where the ballots are scanned. Bipartisan teams work at these computers scanning ballots and manually checking write-in votes to make sure they are counted correctly, along with other marks on the ballot beyond filling in the circles.
The computers are off the grid and not connected to the normal wifi to safeguard against hacking and preserve the sanctity of the vote.
After the ballots are scanned, they are placed in stacks in a room off to the side. All the ballots will be placed in that room after they are processed. They will be kept there in case election results are contested and a recount is ordered. After the election is fully over, the ballots will be moved to a secondary location where they will be preserved for a set number of years.
Through the County Clerk’s office, anyone’s voting information can be accessed, as it is a matter of public record. This includes their voter registration and what elections they have voted in, but not the nature of their votes. Burgess says that in certain circumstances, with people who may be at risk, including law enforcement officers and major trial witnesses, they can mask some information.
Along with the votes, the County Clerk’s office processes various documents year round. This includes marriage certificates, passport applications and more. The office also contains records of old documents from Marion County dating back to the 1850s, including old deeds, mortgage records and marriage certificates. There are also binders with information for all elections they manage, such as the Salem-Keizer School Board, including candidate filing information and official results dating back a few years.
If you have questions about voting or concerns about your ballot you can visit the County Clerk’s office tomorrow before 8 p.m. or you can call (503) 588-5041.
