ORGON CITY, Oregon (AP) – An Oregon Democratic MP is calling for an investigation into a ballot printing fiasco that will delay Tuesday’s primary election results by weeks, with a key race in the US House hanging in the balance. prides itself on voter access and election transparency.
Tens of thousands of ballots in the state’s third-largest constituency were printed with blurred barcodes, making them unreadable by the counting machines – a mistake that was not caught until the ballots were no longer returned to the state by mail. Election officials now have to manually transfer votes from these ballots to new ones, which can be read in a diligent process that also increases the possibility of duplication errors.
As the scale of the crisis became apparent, local, state and federal lawmakers on Friday escalated criticism of Clacamas County Election Sherry Hall, who defended her actions at a news conference on Friday and said she had learned from her mistakes.
U.S. Attorney Janelle Bynam, who represents voters in the county, called the situation “unreasonable and untenable,” and U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer, who represents some Klakamas voters in Congress, called Hall’s slow response “unscrupulous.” Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has asked Hall for a written plan outlining how she will receive the election results table by June 13, the state’s deadline for verifying the results.
“Although there is time to prepare for disaster on election day, Ms Hall has repeatedly failed to adapt and accept enough help to deal with the current crisis,” Bynam said.
The debacle has angered many in Oregon, where all ballots have been cast only by mail for 23 years, and lawmakers have consistently pushed for greater voter access through automatic voter registration and extensions. It has also called into question a key race for the US House of Commons in an area that includes much of Clacamas County, which stretches nearly 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers), from the liberal southern suburbs of Portland to rural conservative communities on the flanks of Mount Hood.
In the Democratic primary for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, seven-term moderate Kurt Schroeder was behind the progressive candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner. The result could have a huge impact in November, with the opportunity for voters to change the Republican Party’s seat.
Hall told a news conference on Friday that she had made mistakes. When pressed why she didn’t do more to address the issue when it was discovered in early May, Hall said, “I just didn’t do it.”
“I did not respond to this with the urgency I had to have, and I am aware of that, but I still know that we will do the count in time,” she said. “It was something we had never seen before, so part of it, I guess, was just reaction and learning.”
U.S. Republicans also paid close attention to the ballot mess.
Republican Sen. Bill Kenemer, whose county includes much of Clacamas County, called the voting problems “alarming and alarming” and said he hoped the crisis would lead to adjustments in the system.
“I would really be glad to see us after going through this crisis, to take a deep breath and attract some experts we trust, and then start looking for where our gaps are in our armor and what we need, to fix it, “he told the Associated Press on Friday.
Hall uses Moonlight BPO in Bend – a printer not used for newsletters from any other county – and said she has used them for 10 years without any problems.
Moonlight, which was founded as a small family business in 1985, was a certified printer for the county’s electoral system, the Hart InterCivic spreadsheet system, but Hall said the company has stopped certifying all printers for ballot printing in 2020. Mr. Clacamas County continued to use Moonlight, but Hall said, “I have no intention of using them again.”
Aaron Berg, a spokesman for Moonlight, said Moonlight had not been able to find out what had happened to the ballots.
“We follow exactly the same protocol and process every year and nothing has changed this year,” he told the AP. “We need to understand what the hell is going on. And we’re not saying anyone is to blame. “
Berg said a Moonlight team traveled to Clacamas County in early May and met with Hall and another of her staff to review the process. “This is the last we heard about him until he appeared in the news, to our surprise,” Berg said.
About 60,000 ballots are unreadable by the counting machines due to blurred barcodes, and up to 200 county officials have been redeployed on Thursday from their normal duties to manually transfer voter intent to a new ballot that can be scanned. By Friday, only 27,342 ballots out of more than 90,000 had been counted and returned.
Hall said the problem came to light on May 3, when workers released the first ballots returned through the counting machine. About 70 or 80 ballots from each batch of 125 were spit out as illegible because their barcodes were paler and slightly blurred. It was too late to print and send new ballots, she said.
Hall and her staff did not “prove” the printed ballots before they were sent to check for any problems, which is considered best practice, but they talked about it, she said. That still wouldn’t fix the problem if the toner ran out by the end of the batch, affecting barcodes, as could be the case, she said.
As election day approached and ballots lined up, Hall said she had allowed election officials to take weekends because only three people had registered for work on Saturday or Sunday. Most election officials are “between the ages of 70 and 85” and need a break, she said.
Fagan said her office had offered Hall help twice since the problem came to light, but Hall said her county had enough resources.
U.S. election officials say they have little power over non-partisan local election officials who work independently and are indebted to voters. Hall will be re-elected in November after taking office in 2003.
This is not the first time Hall has been criticized for his role. In 2012, a temporary election official was sentenced to 90 days in prison after admitting to falsifying two ballots. In 2014, Hall was criticized for using the phrase “Democratic Party” – a humiliation used by Republicans to humiliate Democrats – in a primary vote instead of the Democratic Party.
The district audit last year identified several problems with election procedures, but Hall made only two of the four adjustments proposed in the audit, said Tuti Smith, the county’s president.
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Klein was reported by Portland.
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