Polk County ballot recount begins today

Polk County Clerk Val Unger's office will begin counting 31,158 ballots by hand today in order to sort out whether Craig Pope or Danny Jaffer won the race for Pope's county commissioner seat.

Counties across Oregon had until 5 p.m. Monday evening to turn in their official results to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office. Unger officially certified her election on Nov. 19 but waited until all the results were in to start recounting.

"I wanted to get it done before Thanksgiving so my candidates will have peace of mind," Unger said.

There are just 10 votes separating the two men. Pope has 12,550; Jaffer has 12,540.

Oregon law requires a recount when the margin between two candidates is less than one-fifth of one percent of the votes cast in that race. In this case, that would be about 50 votes.

It's rare that a race is so close it triggers a recount, and this year there are two. The other is Measure 92, which would require the labeling of food containing genetically modified ingredients.

Every county must do that recount, which means Unger will be handling both. She said she likely won't do the Measure 92 recount for another couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess said he plans to start his GMO recount on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

The statewide election doesn't have to be officially certified until Dec. 4, but Secretary of State spokesman Tony Green said his office expects to have that done before the deadline.

It's a fairly simple process, he said. About six counties still had not turned in their results on Monday morning, and afterward the state office simply checks to make sure the math works out, Green said.

The statewide recount will begin after the state has certified the election, he said. The most recent recount was in 2008, also a ballot measure. Measure 53 allowed law enforcement agencies to use the proceeds from civil forfeitures after a person had been convicted of a crime.

The measure passed by just 681 votes.

The recount process is straightforward but detailed. Unger explained it this way:

She will assemble four teams of four people (Burgess plans on 10 teams of four, since he has more ballots to count), and each team will sit at a table.

Each table will get the ballots for a precinct, and each two-person team at the table will organize their ballots into five piles based on how the vote-counting machines labeled them: votes for Pope, votes for Jaffer, write-in votes, under votes and over votes.

(In an "under vote," the voter didn't choose either candidate. In an "over vote," he or she chose both.)

Each team counts their piles and takes a tally. Then they switch and count each other's piles. Finally, they bring those counts to Unger, who compares them to what the machine found. If they're within one or two of the machine, she accepts the hand counts.

Most teams do their ballots in batches of about 25, so they don't lose count.

Representatives from both campaigns usually observe, she said, and the public can attend as well, although there are strict rules for people who observe.

A recount can potentially change the outcome of a race, Unger said.

The statewide recount in 2008 wasn't particularly close in Polk County, she said, but there were 32 over votes that the machine had counted, and 26 turned out to be real votes. Smudges or eraser marks had tricked the machines into reading them wrong.

Some voters also write in the name of the candidate they want, even when that person is on the ballot, Unger said.

It can even change the outcome of a race.

In 2010, the primary race between Yamhill County Commissioner Mary Stern and challenger Mary Starrett ended in a hand recount. Stern went into it with a three-vote lead and came out behind by four votes.

The duo faced off again in November of that year, and Stern ultimately won her seat back. However, the recount did mean she lost the primary election.

Unger said she hopes to have results by the end of Tuesday, but the official results may not be announced until Wednesday morning.

hhoffman@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6719 or follow at twitter.com/HannahKHoffman