Critics of beleaguered Clackamas County elections chief Sherry Hall hope this is the year voters oust her.
Hall’s office has been at the center of a series of mishaps since voters first elected her as county clerk in 2002, from an invalidated local election to a state vote-tampering investigation to a well-publicized ballot fiasco that delayed primary results for 10 days this May.
Over the years, despite being blamed for everything from a mismanaged election office to tarnished trust in Oregon, Hall has repeatedly won reelection, usually by wide margins and often without spending a single dollar, to the frustration of her political adversaries.
But they think this year is different. Hall is facing Catherine McMullen, a Multnomah County elections specialist with a long list of endorsements and $125,000 raised so far, more than any of Hall’s opponents since at least 2010. McMullen is running a polished campaign in the county that’s a mix of suburban Portland and rural communities. Hall, meanwhile, has not reported raising or spending any funds and apparently lacks a campaign website.
That barebones strategy brought her past success. But Hall, who is conservative in a race that is technically nonpartisan, is running just months after drawing intense scrutiny for a massive vote-count delay in the May primary. Hall had advance notice that tens of thousands of damaged ballots would need to be duplicated by hand and nevertheless waived off help from county officials for days. The debacle postponed election results in some of the state’s closest-watched races for 10 days after the rest of Oregon counties finished their tallies.
Some Republican officials such as Clackamas County Commission Chair Tootie Smith joined Democrats in criticizing Hall’s relaxed approach. Hall maintained she was not responsible and later called the election a “success.” Then, after the dust finally settled last month, Hall’s office flubbed again by mailing incorrect voter pamphlets to thousands of Oregon City voters.
Hall did not respond to repeated requests to comment for this story.
Her critics say enough is enough.
“Past attempts to unseat Sherry Hall were blamed on partisan antics, but her recent blunders were so dangerous, egregious and so poorly managed that at this point people realize, regardless of party affiliation, that you can either do the job or you can’t. And she can’t,” Lake Oswego Mayor Joe Buck, a Democrat, said in an email.
Sen. Bill Kennemer of Canby, a Republican who endorsed Hall’s first run for office 20 years ago, distanced himself from the longtime clerk after the primary and doubted Hall would win reelection.
“Sherry’s previous mistakes have not been of this caliber,” Kennemer told The Oregonian/OregonLive in June.
BOTH CANDIDATES EXPERIENCED
Hall has long held clerical posts in Clackamas County, including 12 years in the District Attorney’s Office before she stepped into her role as clerk in 2003. The job, which pays more than $112,000 per year, involves conducting elections and maintaining public records such as property transactions and marriage licenses.
McMullen says she began her career in public service 17 years ago when she became a public librarian. She’s worked in elections since 2015 and is currently a campaign finance specialist in the Multnomah County Elections Division, according to her LinkedIn profile. She is certified as an election administrator by the Oregon Association of County Clerks and holds an executive master of public administration degree from Portland State University.
Catherine McMullen is running for Clackamas County Clerk against longtime incumbent Sherry Hall. Courtesy of the campaign.
In an interview, McMullen said her experience makes her the right candidate to replace Hall.
“Sherry Hall’s errors are about as long as her history there in office and it is definitely time for a change,” she said.
The series of mistakes under Hall’s leadership began in 2004, when Clackamas County Elections mailed ballots without three annexation questions to hundreds of Sandy voters. Hall said she knew of the misprint 10 days before the election but didn’t inform the public or the press, and all three results were close enough to be affected.
Since then, the elections office has repeatedly mailed misprinted ballots or materials to voters, including in 2010, when Hall mistakenly placed two races on the May ballot instead of the November ballot, and in 2013, when her office misprinted the date of a Wilsonville special election on voter pamphlets. Hall’s office also drew criticism in 2012, when a temporary elections worker was charged with ballot tampering and received 90 days in jail.
“There must never be another incident that might compromise an election,” Hall said after that scandal.
Hall often responds to criticism with a shrug. She maintains that her office conducts fair and accurate elections, even if misprints and gaffes have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.
Her critics include a slew of Clackamas County officials, especially Democrats, and some of Hall’s former employees, who have long questioned her competence as well as her insistence that she keeps politics out of the job.
Hall has refused to conduct marriage ceremonies of any kind since Oregon legalized same-sex marriage in 2014. Records show she contributed over $500 to national Republican political causes in 2020, and Hall’s Facebook account “liked” a number of conservative pages including one called “Donald Trump is my President.”
Metro Council President Lynn Peterson, a Democrat who chaired the Clackamas County Commission from 2007 to 2011, said Hall’s missteps have cost Clackamas County plenty of dollars and also trust among the voting public.
“To me it’s about trust in government and trust that votes are counted,” she said in an interview. “And over the last decade that Sherry Hall has led the elections office, we have seen mistakes that could have been avoided with proactive management based on best practices.”
‘LOW KEY’ CAMPAIGNS
Hall hasn’t reported raising or spending a single dollar on campaigns since 2010. In 2018, her opponent Pamela White out raised and out spent Hall by more than $100,000 and still lost by 6,000 votes.
“Since her first race, she has been very low key,” Kennemer, the state senator, said of Hall in a recent interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Kennemer said he’s seen Hall quietly attend civic and political events this campaign cycle. But she’s not one to sport a campaign t-shirt or glad-hand, Kennemer said, so there’s often no indication that she’s running for reelection.
McMullen says she’s mounting a targeted campaign to meet voters face-to-face and plans to debut digital ads and mailers. McMullen also enjoys the full support of local Democratic officials and funders, including the Clackamas County Democratic Party, which has contributed $8,500 through a committee so far. Jan Lee, the party chair, said McMullen is an “outstanding candidate.” McMullen has also raked in funding from local unions and more than $50,000 from the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors.
She said part of her goal is boosting awareness of who Hall is and what she does. McMullen said voters know the county elections office has caused problems, including the May primary snafu, but they might not know which office Hall holds. A lack of interest among voters was apparent in 2018, when more than 52,000 voters who voted in other state and county races skipped marking the county clerk’s race altogether.
Hall’s relatively obscure post in government may have protected her through the years, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston who studies political scandals.
“You’ve got politicians who, by virtue of their positions, fly under the radar of most voters. This seems like one of those positions,” he said.
Voters also tend to favor incumbents — another factor that’s likely favored Hall.
Hall is running for the first time this year without the ability to splash her name across envelopes and other materials mailed with ballots, a valuable source of name-recognition. State lawmakers banned the practice in 2019 after Hall’s name and position appeared repeatedly on Clackamas County voting materials.
— Grant Stringer; gstringer@oregonian.com; 503-307-3591; @Stringerjourno