Civics: Clackamas County still struggling to count ballots a week after Election Day

Julie Shumway:

Hall missed her deadline last Friday, asked Monday for another day and didn’t submit her memo until late Tuesday. She still didn’t include a proposed timeline, but a Fagan spokesman said the secretary of state will give Hall benchmarks to meet each day and ask her to provide daily updates on the number of ballots duplicated.

Talking with reporters Tuesday afternoon, Fagan stressed that she still has full faith that Clackamas County’s slow-moving election results will be accurate, though she said found the delays “incredibly frustrating and quite frankly just outrageous.”
Read Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall’s memo

She demanded a written plan so voters will know how many ballots to expect each day and so she and Clackamas County leaders can know if Hall’s office needs more help. When ballot problems were detected prior to the election, Hall repeatedly insisted that she would meet deadlines without any additional staff, only to surprise Fagan, voters and candidates by failing to report any results on election night.

As of Tuesday night, Clackamas County had tallied just 60,230 ballots, slightly more than half of the ballots received. The county has only duplicated 7,543 ballots, according to Hall’s memo.