Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan admonished Clackamas County election officials Tuesday night for failing to provide timely results from the May primary, calling the delays “unacceptable.”
As of 11 p.m., Clackamas County was the only one of Oregon’s 36 counties that had not reported results to the state from Tuesday’s election. The delays meant that the results of many key local and statewide races remained unknown Tuesday night.
“As Oregon’s chief election officer – and a Clackamas County voter — I am deeply concerned about the delay in reporting from Clackamas County Elections tonight,” Fagan said in a statement late Tuesday. “While I am confident that the process they are following is secure, transparent and the results will be accurate, the county’s reporting delays tonight are unacceptable. Voters have done their jobs, and now it’s time for Clackamas County Elections to do theirs.”
Even before Tuesday’s worst-in-state performance, a substantial portion of results from Clackamas County were expected to be delayed due to a printing error affecting two-thirds of ballots that required election workers to hand-duplicate votes onto new ballots. The majority of the defective ballots were Democratic ones.
Despite the massive error, County Clerk Sherry Hall told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday that the county would post preliminary results by 8:10 p.m. on election night, along with information on when results would be posted again. That didn’t happen.
And she had said only ballots turned in on Election Day – not those with printing errors that reached her office earlier in the election cycle – would still need to be hand-duplicated after most results are released at 8 p.m. on election night.
Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall.
But the county posted only one batch of very limited results to its website and didn’t provide any for posting on the Secretary of State’s website, as is standard and 35 other counties did. The limited results posted to the county website included just 6,352 votes for the Republican primary for governor, 1,882 voters for the Democratic primary for governor and limited number of votes in other races.
Hall did not respond to a request for comment from The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday night.
The delays meant that results remained unclear in the nationally watched Democratic primary for the 5th Congressional District, the race for president of the Metro regional government, several open state House races in Clackamas County and two key races for seats on the county commission that will decide the political makeup of that body.
“In recent days, my office and other counties have offered extra personnel to help with timely reporting,” Fagan said. “We eagerly await a response from county elections officials on how we can aid in the timely processing of results. I am disappointed that we have not seen more urgency from elections officials in Clackamas County.”
-- Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; @jamiebgoldberg