MARION COUNTY, Ore. — Now nearly three weeks past Election Day, the deadline to cure your ballot — if it was flagged for something like a signature mistake — is Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 5 p.m. The final votes in one Oregon House district could end up having major statewide implications. More specifically, whether or not Democrats will have a supermajority in Salem.
As of Monday night, Democrat Lesly Muñoz leads incumbent Republican Tracy Cramer in the race for House District 22 in Marion County. The latest numbers show 149 votes separate the two candidates in a race that's still too close to call.
The Marion County Clerk told KGW that the ballot curing process is still underway, with nearly 500 ballots in that district still listed as "unaccepted." Throughout the entire county, the clerk said more than 3,000 ballots required a signature verification before the votes would count and elections officials sent out cure letters to the impacted voters in an attempt to get things sorted out before the deadline. In District 22, he said there's been a concerted effort, by both the campaigns and the parties, to cure as many ballots as possible because a supermajority is on the line.
"What is the supermajority? The way people talk about it, it's like there's a majority with the cape on that's trying to fly through the air," said Jim Moore, politics professor at Pacific University. "All the supermajority means is that you need 3/5 majority in the State House, the Senate or the House of Representatives, to pass tax measures."
As Moore explained, to pass other bills, it's not really necessary, but it is a requirement to pass specialized taxes, and has been since 2005.
"It's what Oregon came up with and we, the people, voted on it and said, yes, we want 3/5 in both houses in order to pass it anything that's a tax," Moore said.
He believes that transportation will be a big issue in the upcoming legislative session, and gave this as an example for a tax that could be considered by lawmakers:
"For instance, we have a gas tax, but electric cars don't pay it because they don't go to the gas pump and hybrids, you know, use few lower amounts of gas and things like that," he said. "So is there some kind of a tax that could be put on electric cars and things like that? So that that might be an example."
The Oregon Senate already has a supermajority.
As for District 22, an automatic recount would only happen if around 40 votes or fewer separates the two candidates after all additional ballots are counted. If it's higher than that and a candidate requests a recount, that campaign would have to pay for it.
If not before, Oregonians should know the outcome of the race by Dec. 2, which is the deadline for certifying the results.