Castillo vs. Maurer: Ballot Wonkery
Kari Chisholm
I just got off the phone with Don Hamilton at the Secretary of State. Got answers to a lot of odd little process questions related to the Castillo/Maurer race. Let's dive in and get wonkified:
- First of all, in yesterday's post, I repeated the AP's earlier assertion that there were 4400 outstanding ballots. According to Hamilton, a day later, the number is actually about 17,000 outstanding ballots.
- Why are there about 17,000 outstanding ballots? The ballots that are left to be counted include three types of ballots:
- They're damaged, soaked, torn, or the voter didn't properly fill in the bubbles (perhaps checking, or X-ing, or circling the bubbles or names.) In these cases, an impartial and bipartisan panel determine the intent of the voter and prepares a replacement ballot that can be scanned.
- There are ballots where the voter either didn't sign the envelope - or where the signature doesn't match what's on file. Those voters have ten days from election day to visit a county elections office and show ID. Correction: Ballots with signature mismatches have 10 days to fix their ballot - missing signatures must be provided by 8pm on Election Day (and folks who vote early are notified.)
- There are ballots that were delivered to the wrong county. For example, suburban voters who drop their ballots in downtown Portland dropboxes.
- What about a recount? As I noted before, there's an automatic recount if the margin between the candidates is less than 0.2%. But what if Susan Castillo drops down to within 0.2% of 50% plus one? Sorry, Ron Maurer, no automatic recount.
- Of course, anyone (the losing candidate, a political party, or you) can request and pay for a statewide recount. Not sure how much that costs - but surely in the tens of thousands of dollars. According to Hamilton, no statewide candidate or ballot measure election has ever been reversed as a result of a recount.
- On the timing: Again,
missing-or-bad-signature ballots are in a ten-day window. Then, the state has 30 days from election day to certify the results. We'll largely know the outcome in the next few days, but things will shift minutely until June 17. - One last thing: Hamilton wanted me to emphasize that this stuff happens in every race in every election. Of course, it's just in the close races like Castillo/Maurer where we pay attention.
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connect with blueoregon
5:14 p.m.
May 20, '10
Thanks for the update Kari, this, for me, was the real surprise outcome of Tuesday night.
5:26 p.m.
May 20, '10
Presently the SoS has Sup. Castillo at 50.10% and Rep. Maurer at 40.60%. A nailbiter...
7:15 p.m.
May 20, '10
Kari, Did Hamilton give you an idea about how these ballots broke out by County? If he did, for cross County line drops, do those counts indicate original County, or County where dropped?
10:11 p.m.
May 20, '10
He did not. But I think you can expect that they are largely in areas where you have workers who cross county lines on a daily basis -- like in the metro area, from West Salem (Polk) to downtown Salem (Marion), from Linn & Benton counties...
7:26 p.m.
May 20, '10
Maurer has no shot. Worst case scenario is a run-off in Nov. In a full election the right wing nut job is going to lose.
7:53 a.m.
May 22, '10
Should this go to a November run-off, Maurer has an excellent shot at unseating the incumbant establishment candidate. For the May election he campaigned mostly around Salem and in southern Oregon. A statewide campaign will easily unseat a democrat, status quo incumbant.
7:56 a.m.
May 21, '10
Maybe it is only because I never thought about or found it convenient to drop my ballot in a dropbox located in a county other than the one I live in, but it never occurred to me that doing so would slow down the count. I wonder how many people who do that know it has this effect? I tended to look upon it as being more or less the equivalent of mailing the ballot (except I save a stamp).
How do voters know if their envelopes are unsigned or have a signature that is a questionable match? Does someone notify them?
9:41 a.m.
May 21, '10
FYI, I've made a correction in the above post. Don Hamilton contacted me to let me know that he'd mis-stated the 10-day window.
A ballot that is missing its signature has to be fixed by 8pm on election day - or it's not a valid ballot. If the ballot is turned in early, the voter is contacted and invited to come in and sign the ballot.
A ballot that has a signature that doesn't match what's on file has to be fixed within 10 days after election day.
6:56 a.m.
May 22, '10
Kari, is the voter notified of the potential issue with their signature? How are they notified?