How Oregon election workers ensure accurate ballot counts 

With less than two weeks before the Tuesday, Nov. 5 election, election workers are preparing to tally hundreds of thousands of ballots in the Metro area.

Multnomah County has fewer than 20 permanent election workers, aided during elections by up to 200 temporary workers. Clackamas County has seven permanent elections employees and around 120 temporary election workers scheduled to collect and process ballots this election.

Ballots follow similar paths in both counties.

• Ballots are mailed out to registered voters in Oregon 20 days before the election (or earlier for out-of-state voters like active military personnel and college students). Ballot drop boxes open the same day.
• The counties send teams of two sworn election workers (each registered with a different political party) out to collect ballots and bring them back to the elections center to be tallied. Each ballot box is emptied at least every weekday leading up to election day. 
• Ballots are run through a sorter that takes an image of the signature on the back of the ballot return envelope. Workers compare the signature image to the signature on your voter registration or state ID card. If the worker and senior staff agree the signature doesn’t match, or if there’s no signature, the ballot is set aside. Those voters are then sent a letter (and an email or phone call, if signed up through Track Your Ballot) notifying them of the issue. They have until 21 days after the election to correct the issue by providing an updated signature.
• Accepted ballots are sent through a machine that removes the top of each envelope. Then they’re distributed to tables of four election workers, who remove the ballots from their envelopes, flatten them, check for damage or other issues, like too many ballots in one envelope. That is where your ballot, which has no identifiable information, is separated from the envelope with your name and signature, Clackamas County Clerk Catherine McMullen said.
• Small portions of Clackamas and Washington counties are inside Portland city limits. When elections workers pull Portland ballots out of envelopes, they set them aside for secure transport to Multnomah County Elections, where they’re tallied.
• At the tables, election workers wear different colored lanyards depending on their political party affiliation. 
• “Everyone is required to work with people of different political affiliations,” McMullen said. “That is the only time that, as an elections administrator, we care what someone’s political party is.” 
• The ballots then head to the scanners. In Clackamas County, a room with limited access holds six scanners and three adjudication stations. Elections workers start scanning ballots weeks before the election. “It’s reading the marks, but there’s no tabulation that happens until election night,” McMullen said. Starting at 8 p.m. on election night, secure thumb drives are used to transfer vote tallies from the scanners, which are not connected to the internet, to a separate computer with internet access. Results are then uploaded to the Secretary of State’s website and county elections site.
• The scanners can only handle straightforward filled-in bubbles. If voters mark their ballot for one candidate, cross it out, and select another candidate, two election workers from different political parties must review the ballot and agree on what the voter’s intent was.

In Clackamas County, temporary elections workers range from high school students to retirees.

McMullen said she was able to lower the minimum age requirement for some temporary elections positions to 16 years old, “so that high school students, even before they’re eligible to vote, can get some experience working in elections, seeing what it’s like to be a public employee.”

The county also received a federal grant to hire college students as election workers. The department also has had college students as interns this year.

“I love it because we’re getting folks in at the beginning of their careers to consider public service and elections,” McMullen said.

Edward Gutiérrez, Multnomah County Elections Communications Coordinator, said when he started in the role two years ago, he was impressed by how long many of his colleagues had been in elections. “Folks, once they get in, they love it (and) they stay,” Gutiérrez said. 

But throughout Oregon, county election staffing hasn’t kept pace with the growing number of registered voters, a 2023 study found.

In Clackamas County, the elections division only had four permanent employees when McMullen started. There are now seven election workers, six of whom are represented by the Clackamas County Employees Association. 

There are four regularly scheduled election dates in Oregon each year, though most jurisdictions don’t typically use all those dates. 

“Generally, we are really busy with the current election 60 days before and 30 days after. And if we have four elections, that’s pretty much most of the year,” McMullen said. Any downtime between elections is used for infrastructure improvements like building new voter services or improving digital security.

Clackamas County is opening a new Voter Service Center at the Happy Valley Library, offering replacement ballots, voting booths for people who want to vote in person, and assistance voting for people with disabilities or who speak languages other than English. Happy Valley is one of Clackamas County’s largest, fastest growing, youngest, and most diverse communities, and is located far from the county’s main voter services in Oregon City.

Multnomah County offers a Voting Center Express in Gresham, staffed with workers who speak languages like Spanish, Vietnamese or Russian. 

Beyond keeping ballots safe and secure, elections programs are also concerned with worker safety. The elections division works with the sheriff’s office on a security plan that “prioritize the safety of election workers, the public, and election infrastructure,” Gutiérrez said.

Multnomah County elections workers who interact with the public, like front counter workers and workers who collect ballots from the drop boxes, receive de-escalation training every election cycle.

Suspicious packages, some containing white powder, were sent to election officials in at least 16 states last month. In Clackamas County, an orange bucket is placed next to each table of election workers. If workers encounter any suspicious substance as they sort ballots, they are instructed to contain it with the bucket and alert officials in case evacuation is needed. 

Clackamas County’s elections office is getting a remodel next year, including safety upgrades like sturdy dividers between workers and visitors and additional cameras for transparency and security.

McMullen said the office hasn’t had any major safety incidents, but there’s still a need for improvements.

“There is an increase in folks not trusting their local public officials and expressing anger in more physical ways. We’ve dealt with the low level of threats to safety here, mostly myself as an elected official, since part of my job is to be very public facing,” McMullen said.

Deescalation training is also part of an effort to make sure that everyone feels welcome in the elections office, Gutiérrez said. “Not just the folks who are coming in with a talking point that’s maybe mis- or mal- information, but also the people around that person while they’re in our proximity. We want to ensure that everyone feels safe.”