OREGON CITY, Ore. — Clackamas County is no longer facing delays in processing incoming ballots after a mechanical problem a mail sorting machine was fixed.
Staff temporarily needed to use hand scanners through Thursday while the machine was being repaired, the county said. The issue impacted some voters' ability to track the status of their ballots online. The county told KGW that a mechanic repaired the machine Thursday evening.
On the Monday before Election Day, Clackamas County Clerk Catherine McMullen gave an update on the situation, saying the mail ballot sorter machine fix from the previous Thursday was holding, and that elections staff, with the machine working, had processed 56,346 ballots from Friday through the weekend — leaving about 10,000 ballots still to process from the slowdown.
"On Thursday evening there was a sensor that a belt had worn through, so that sensor needed to be replaced so that we could continue moving ballots through the mail ballot sorter, and since that has been replaced it has worked beautifully," said McMullen.
McMullen added that ballot return envelopes are being processed at an increased rate; additional signature verification workstations have been added.
All returned ballots pass through the mail sorter at the start of processing, according to a news release from the county. The machine takes an image of the back of each envelope and scans the barcode to verify that the envelope is valid. Elections staff then review the images to compare the signatures on the envelopes with each voter's registration record.
Based on those results, the machine then sorts the ballots into the categories of "verified" or "challenged," the latter of which means the signature didn't match and the voter will need to be contacted to fix the issue. Accepted and processed envelopes are then opened and scanned by a bipartisan team.
Ballots were mailed out to voters starting Oct. 16, and elections staff found the following week that the machine had begun to abruptly and repeatedly stop moving ballots, interrupting the sorting process and making it difficult to process large volumes of ballots at a steady pace.
Representatives from the mail sorter company had already provided onsite support and were scheduled to return and provide more "the week of October 28" according to the county news release, which was sent out on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 31. At the time, there was no precise estimate for when the machine would be repaired.
In the meantime, McMullen had ordered staff to process ballots using hand scanners, according to the news release. The hand scanner method is how the county processed all ballots until it switched to the sorting machine in 2015, and smaller Oregon counties continue to use only hand scanners, according to the news release. Clackamas County will also use "chain of custody" forms to track the remaining ballots through processing.
The county had processed 82,869 ballots as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to the news release. Another 40,000 were on hand to being processing at the start of the day on Thursday, and another 12,000 arrived through the mail and at drop box sites on Thursday.
A few Clackamas County voters reported issues with their return ballot envelopes arriving already sealed earlier this month; McMullen recommended voters re-open the envelope, put the completed ballot inside and tape it shut, or request a new ballot online or at the elections office.
On the eve of election day, McMullen said they are ready for all the ballots that come into their office.
"The most important thing is that you vote," she said. "I recommend turning your ballot in to an official ballot drop site today to avoid the lines tomorrow ... but that is really the most important thing, is that you take this time to make sure that your voice is heard by tomorrow night."