Clackamas County Election officials explain results delay

CLACKAMAS COUNTY Ore. (KPTV) – Following the announcement voters should expect a delay in election results in Clackamas County, officials have released a more detailed look at why that is.

Word of delayed results first came on Monday when Clackamas County’s Public Information Officer Kimberly Webb told FOX 12 County Clerk Sherry Hall would be delaying the second update of election results until 6 p.m. Wednesday. The initial update is set for right after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

In a statement released Tuesday, Clackamas County officials said several factors played into the delay of results.

“These factors are election integrity and voter confidentiality and the volume of ballots coming in during the Election cycle,” the county said in a release. “Providing an update on a larger number of processed ballots protects the confidentiality of voters by limiting the ability to compare who voted and who didn’t.”

The county also pointed to more voters as a delaying factor.

“It is not a secret that people are waiting to cast their votes in this election. This is impacting our traditional workflow and the results tonight and tomorrow will reflect that.

A higher-than-normal influx of ballots this late in the election leads to a delay in signature verifications as that is the most time-consuming part of this process. For example, we received an estimated 51,000 ballots yesterday.”

In May, Clackamas County Elections Office became the center of attention when defective barcodes on over 300,000 ballots caused a significant delay in primary results. Hall, who knew of the error in advance, opted not to take assistance in hand-duplicating the ballots from county commissioners and the state at the time of the discovery.