Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall on Wednesday painted a rosy picture of the county’s May primary election and how her office responded to a printing error that in the end delayed election results for 13 days.
But some members of the county commission, which had requested her presentation, pushed back on Hall’s assertion that her office quickly and effectively responded to the blurred ballots, and some basic facts also undercut her depiction.
Hall said her office came up with a plan for hand-duplicating defective ballots within 48 hours of discovering May 3 that up to two-third of ballots were marred with blurred barcodes. She also defended her decision not to bring in additional staff before Election Day to help respond to the error, saying she and other election officials believed there would be low turnout because less than 16% of voters had returned their ballots by the Friday before the primary. Hall pointed to the fact that her office certified results by the statutory deadline of June 13 as evidence of a successful election.
“It was nothing but a success with all of the issues we had to deal with,” Hall told the county commission during Wednesday’s hour-and-a-half meeting.
But the results, including in some very close races, weren’t substantially complete for nearly two weeks – far longer than any Oregon county has ever taken to tally its results. And it ultimately cost county taxpayers $600,000 to duplicate and count the defective ballots, money which came out of Hall’s budget.
Commissioner Sonya Fischer questioned how Hall didn’t recognize immediately that it would be a monumental task for election workers to respond to the ballot flaws and why she rejected offers from local and state leaders as early as May 5 to provide assistance. A change to state rules that meant ballots postmarked by Election Day would count should have made Hall extra-aware of the possibility of a late voting surge, Fischer told her.
Voter turnout in Clackamas County was particularly high in the May election with 38.2% of registered voters returning ballots. That compares to 28.9% of county voters who cast a ballot in the 2018 primary and 31% who voted in the 2014 primary. However, prior to Election Day, election workers were only hand-duplicating 1,500 marred ballots per day, meaning that it would have taken weeks for those staff members to count every ballot without help even if turnout had been similar to past May primaries. Hall, however, didn’t agree to accept help from county staff until after Election Day.
“I’m very concerned that you are here today saying that you addressed it in a timely way and you were not aware of (the extent of) the problem until right around Election Day,” Fischer told Hall.
Hall brushed off criticism about the delayed results and reiterated that what mattered was that ballots were counted by the statutory deadline.
“We knew we could get it done by certification deadline, which is way later than what many people wanted, but we are given that time when things like this occur so we have time to get through them,” Hall said. “It is allowed by law.”
The county is no longer working with Moonlight BPO, the Bend printer that delivered the ballots with blurred barcodes. Instead, another Bend company, Ryder Election Services, printed ballots for the most recent August special election in Clackamas County and will print ballots again for the county in November.
However, Hall’s office has yet to issue a request for proposals for a permanent printer. She said Wednesday that the process of putting together that request didn’t begin until July, which made it impossible to sign a contract with a new permanent printer ahead of the November election.
Commission Chair Tootie Smith questioned why Hall’s office didn’t issue a request earlier. Had Hall’s office begun that process after finishing ballot counting for the May election, Smith said, it could have had a permanent printer in place by November.
Commissioner Paul Savas said he believes that the county should hire an out-of-state company to review the incidence of blurred barcodes and the response from election officials to “make the system better and refine it in a constructive way.” Hall said she would cooperate with an outside review, but reminded the commission that her office would be busy in the fall with the November election.
Fischer said she had expected Hall would provide a written after-action report to the commission Wednesday and questioned why that hadn’t happened. Smith directed Hall to provide a written report soon to the commission that includes a timeline of what happened during the May election, corrective actions taken by Hall’s office and her plans moving forward to the November election. Smith said she wanted other county officials who were involved in the May primary to provide their own analysis of the election as well.
“You’re going to have your report, but there’s also going to be another report from (the county) attorney and our county administrator because there were suggestions made as early as May 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, up to Election Day and that needs to be part of the record also,” Smith said.
The commission also grilled Hall on her office’s latest mistake, which occurred this month when 3,800 Oregon City households were mailed the wrong voter pamphlets without information about the Aug. 23 special election for mayor. New pamphlets were mailed out a day after Hall’s office became aware of the error, costing the county about $380.
Hall said the mistake happened at the mailing company that sends voter pamphlets and ballots to voters’ homes on the county’s behalf, because the correct voter pamphlets weren’t put in the stack they needed to be. But she couldn’t say exactly what led to the error or whether new processes need to be put in place to avoid similar mistakes in the future. She said she would go to the mailing company to observe the preparation of ballot packages for the upcoming election in November.
“What is the process to make sure all the steps are followed and, if they aren’t followed, where is the accountability if we’re working with a contractor or mail house?” Fischer said. “With the heightened (focus on) election integrity, these kinds of mistakes are just not acceptable to the public, and nor should they be.”
— Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; 503-221-8228; @jamiebgoldberg
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