Clackamas County elections clerk questioned again after voters get wrong pamphlets

CLACKAMAS COUNTY, Ore. (KPTV) - The elections clerk in Clackamas County is in the hot seat following another ballot blunder.

Thousands of people reportedly got the wrong voters’ pamphlet for the Oregon City mayor’s race. County officials say they noticed the mistake late last week and worked quickly to correct it. The county then had to send new pamphlets over the weekend.

On Wednesday, Elections Clerk Sherry Hall faced county leaders who gave her a grilling about the mistake.

“What the mail house does is they inkjet the envelopes, they go down an assembly line, the inkjet puts the address on the envelope and then there’s insertions - the ballot, the return envelope and in this case a voters’ pamphlet - and that stack did not get into the right precinct,” said Hall during a meeting Wednesday.

When asked it she knew why the stack went to the wrong precinct, Hall replied “no.”

With the heightened sense of trust in election integrity, these kinds of mistakes are just not acceptable to the public,” said Commissioner Sonya Fischer.

Back in May, the public did not get primary election results for weeks after voting machines rejected ballots because of smudged barcodes. Those votes then had to be counted by hand.

Shemia Fagan, Secretary of State, called the election delay “outrageous.”

The mistake cost the county $600,000 to fix.

The position for Clackamas County elections clerk is nonpartisan. Hall is up for re-election in November.

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