CLACKAMAS COUNTY, Ore. — Clackamas County is nearing the end of its protracted ballot counting process and the final results are expected to be tallied by the end of the week, the county announced on Tuesday.
The county's tallying process has dragged on through the past two weeks following the May 17 primary due to a printing error that rendered the barcodes on tens of thousands of ballots unreadable by machine scanners. Elections staff have been duplicating each ballot by hand to be re-scanned.
The county has faced widespread criticism for the fiasco, especially given that officials became aware of the printing defect well ahead of the primary election date. Much of the scrutiny has fallen on Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall, who has held the position since 2002 and has a history of other errors.
The Clackamas County Elections office has completed "the majority" of ballot duplication as of Tuesday, according to a news release from the county, and will now turn its attention to counting military and overseas ballots.
The county will also focus on counting ballots for selecting party precinct committee persons, which are separate sheets that will be counted by hand rather than duplicated and scanned, according to a previous update from Hall.
The office is also still processing ballots with signature issues that will need to be resolved by voters. The deadline to do so is June 7.
As of May 30, the county had processed 111,092 ballots and had 3,653 ballots left to be duplicated, according to its elections website. The county received 116,045 total ballots as of May 24, the last day when ballots postmarked on or before election day can still be counted if received in the mail.
All remaining ballots are expected to be processed by the end of this week, the county said, and the office will be ready to certify the results by the June 13 deadline.