The Clatsop County Elections Division tallied the last 190 ballots left uncounted from the Nov. 4 general election Monday afternoon resulting in no changes in the two close races for the seats on the Astoria City Council Ward 4 race and the Clatsop County Board of County Commissioners District 2 race.
The count, conducted at the Judge Guy Boyington Building, put the final tally in the race for the Astoria City Council Ward 4 race at 414 for incumbent Russ Warr and 411 for challenger Bob Goldberg. On election night Warr had a two-vote lead over Goldberg, which would have qualified for an automatic recount. Under state law, counties must conduct recounts of election races if the vote margin is less than one-fifth of 1 percent. With the third vote for Warr a recount will have to be paid for by the requesting party. The request for a recount must be made to the Secretary of State within 35 days of the election along with a deposit of $15 per precinct. If the recount does not change the outcome of the race the party requesting the recount is responsible for the cost incurred (the hourly wages of the inspection board).
The other close local race was for District 2 seat on the Board of County Commissioner. The election night tally had originally put incumbent (and current chair) Patricia Roberts ahead of challenger Jim Scheller by 15-vote. Monday’s final vote tally gave Roberts a total of 1,466 votes to 1,444 votes for Scheller. An automatic recount would have been done if the difference was six votes or less.
Most of the uncounted ballots that were tallied Monday were ballots from Clatsop County voters that had been mailed to or dropped off at other counties’ elections offices. 57 were duplicate ballots, ballots which were unreadable by the machine because of stains, smudges or other other causes making them hard for a machine to determine the intent of the voter. In those cases a duplicate ballot is done in which one of the election board inspectors from one of the parties will read off the ballot to another party member who is marking the duplicate. After that is done they trade and read off the the ballot again and compare what was marked. When both are satisfied with the duplicate ballot the original is retained in case of a recount and the duplicate is run through the machine. Ten ballots had been challenged, meaning the signature on the outer envelope was challenged and the voter was asked to verify that it was theirs before the ballot was counted.
HTML ballots were also a part of the duplicate ballots. Some people overseas vote by HTML (via an online ballot emailed to them) as do some who are seeing impaired and have software that reads the ballot to them. Approximately 17 HTML ballots were requested. Elections clerk Cathy Garber said that the county also had a portable elections machine for those people too ill to deliver a ballot to the elections office. The machine could be requested to come to the home or to a hospital.
Jim Scheller said that he will ask for a recount. In District 2 Scheller will have to send a deposit of $15 for each of the six precincts to the Secretary of State along with his application. Bob Goldberg is unsure whether or not he will ask for a recount on his race.
On November 20th at 10 am the elections office will hand count the ballots in the contests for President & Vice President; Attorney General; and Measure 57 cast by voters of precinct 26. The hand count will take place at the Judge Guy Boyington Building, 857 Commercial in Astoria.
The Secretary of State’s Office on Nov. 5 began implementation of a new law requiring post-election hand-counts of randomly selected races and precincts in each of Oregon’s 36 counties. The hand-counts, adopted by the Legislature in 2007, are designed to supplement existing testing procedures and verify that machines used to tally ballots on Election Day accurately counted the results. On Tuesday, Nov. 5, the Secretary of State’s new Hand-count Advisory Committee randomly drew precincts and races to subject to the handcounts from a rolling drum.
Under the new law, the Secretary of State was required to inform each county clerk by 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 which races and precincts in their county are subject to the handcounts. Counties will have to count by hand a minimum of 3 percent and a maximum of 10 percent of their precincts involving at least three races. The clerks must conduct the hand-counts only after they certify election results to the Secretary of State. Counties must certify their elections results this year no later than Monday, Nov. 24.
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