COLUMBIA COUNTY, If your ballot is still sitting on the kitchen counter, Tuesday is the day to get it in the mail.
Tuesday, Oct. 27, is the last day the Oregon Secretary of State recommends returning a ballot by mail for the Nov. 3 election. After that, the state says to use an official drop box. If you’d still rather mail it, take it to a post office counter and ask the clerk to postmark it by hand.
Why Tuesday
Oregon counts a mailed ballot if it is postmarked by Election Day and reaches the county within seven days, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. The catch is the postmark. Daniel Cortez, president of the Oregon chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, told the Capital Chronicle that a postmark now shows when a piece of mail runs through a sorting machine, which can be days after it went into the box.
The state tested the mail this summer. In August, the Secretary of State’s office and county clerks sent 108 pieces of mail to all 36 county elections offices and tracked them. Every piece would have been postmarked in time to count, but delivery times varied, especially in rural counties, and one piece bound for Harney County took 11 days to arrive, the Capital Chronicle reported. Secretary of State Tobias Read said voters who mail at least a week before Election Day can count on their ballots arriving on time.
Where to Drop It Off
Columbia County’s official drop boxes are open 24 hours a day until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3. No stamp is needed.
- Columbia County Courthouse, 230 Strand St., St. Helens
- Scappoose City Hall, 33568 E. Columbia Ave.
- Clatskanie Library, 11 Lillich St.
- Rainier City Hall, 106 W. B St.
- Vernonia Public Library, 701 Weed Ave.
- Mist-Birkenfeld Rural Fire Protection District, 12525 Oregon Highway 202, Mist
You can also use any official drop box in Oregon, not just the ones in Columbia County.
Track Your Ballot
For this election, Oregon voters in every county can sign up for text, email or phone alerts that follow their ballot from the mailbox to the count. Go to oregonvotes.gov/track and enter your name, birth date and ZIP code. The service, called BallotTrax, tells you when the county receives your ballot, when it is accepted, and whether there is a problem with your signature that you need to fix. Voters have until the 21st day after the election to fix a signature problem, according to the state.
How Many Have Voted So Far
As of 3:55 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, Columbia County’s elections office had received 4,898 ballots from its 42,679 active voters, or about 11.5 percent, according to the state ballot returns report. Statewide, 15.7 percent of ballots were in.
By party, Columbia County’s returned ballots so far came from 2,024 Democrats, 1,667 Republicans and 855 nonaffiliated voters, with the rest from smaller parties.
Everyone on the county’s ballot, with what they told voters, is in the Tribune’s ballot guide. Drop boxes close at 8 p.m. Nov. 3.