PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich released a statement on Wednesday claiming that completed mail-in ballots for the state's May 21 Primary Election were being held by the United States Postal Service instead of being returned directly to county election officials.
The release stated the issue affected "elections offices," plural, and called for the Secretary of State to appear before a public hearing to answer questions about the delays. It also accused the Secretary of State's office of failing to provide information about the scale of the problem.
THE QUESTION
Are there widespread delays in completed ballots being delivered from USPS locations to election officials in Oregon?
THE SOURCES
- Oregon Secretary of State’s Office
- United States Postal Service
- Douglas County Clerk
- National Vote at Home Institution
THE ANSWER
No, there are no widespread ballot delays in Oregon. One county clerk said ballot deliveries were delayed by a few hours due to confusion over a postage payment issue.
WHAT WE FOUND
Oregon elections are conducted entirely by mail, with ballots sent out to voters three weeks before each official election day. Voters can return them at designated county drop boxes or send them back in the mail, and Oregon counties reimburse the postal service so that voters don't need to pay for stamps on the return envelopes.
USPS returns batches of completed ballots to county elections officials as they come in during the weeks leading up to the election, but since only some of the ballots are returned by mail, the returning ballot envelopes are counted up in order to determine how much to reimburse USPS for postage.
According to USPS and the Douglas County clerk, there was a delay at a post office branch in Roseburg; the clerk's ballot pickups were delayed by a few hours due to what the officials described as confusion over who needed to count the ballots to determine how much the county would be billed for the express mail.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Friday that its staff had held a meeting with USPS and county clerks around the state on Thursday morning, where USPS officials told them about the issue and said USPS assured them the situation would be fixed on Friday.
KGW also spoke by phone with Douglas County Clerk Dan Loomis on Thursday, who said he has a good relationship with USPS and doesn’t believe anything nefarious took place. He said the issue over ballot postage billing has been cleared up with the understanding that county election staff, not USPS staff, will count the ballots.
"This was basically some slight confusion in some counties over who was going to do the counting and tallying of how many ballots were going through, that the counties would then get charged for the postage costs," said Barbara Smith Warner, a former Oregon state representative who now serves as the executive director of the National Vote at Home Institute.
USPS also released this statement to KGW: "The U.S. Postal Service is committed to the secure, timely delivery of the nation's Election Mail. Regarding Election Mail in Douglas County, a limited number of ballots weren't immediately available to election officials. The ballots were made available later that day with no further delay. We are reviewing procedures with our employees and look forward to next week's successful election."
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office released this statement: 'We remain confident in Oregon's vote by mail system, and we have no reason to believe these issues will impact Oregonians' ability to have their vote counted in time for Election Day.'