Voters are heading to the polls in record numbers across the country this Election Day.
Oregon is also seeing big turnout numbers, so far. By the morning of Election Day, more than 1.3 million Oregonians had voted — or about 49 percent of registered voters. Depending on how many people vote on Election Day itself, Oregon could eclipse the 1.5 million who voted in the last midterm election in 2014. Those numbers are nowhere close to the 2016 presidential year, when two million Oregonians voted — or roughly two-thirds of Oregon's adult population (a whopping 81 percent of registered voters).
The big national turnout trend is translating into long lines at many polling places, especially in states such as Georgia.
That's not happening in Oregon, where people either vote by mail or drop their ballots at official sites, as it gets closer to Election Day.
"Incredibly easy — it's so great, everybody should do it this way," said Trevor Metcalf as he handed his ballot off at the Multnomah County Elections Office in Southeast Portland. "So much easier."
Still, some Oregonians say that voting is still not as easy as it could be. Ronald Brown showed up to the Multnomah County building to vote on Election Day. Brown is homeless and suspects confusion over his mailing address — a commercial property that elections officials called and asked him about months ago — caused the delay. Brown said he was worried he would miss his chance to vote if he didn't go to the elections office in person.
"So I'm just trying to plan my life and do my civic duties, just like everybody else — so what I arranged was to pick up my ballot here and vote at my leisure, if you would..." said Brown.
Brown said he's been homeless since April and in his conversations with other people in his situation, there's little enthusiasm for voting.
"The talk on the street, a lot of it is, people have given up, because they feel, the powers-that-be have made them believe that they don’t have a voice in government anymore," Brown said.
"Or that it doesn’t matter — I think that’s the saddest thing I could ever hear, and I tell them that that's not true."
Like many voters in Oregon, Brown said he felt motivated to vote by the governor's race and ballot measures in this midterm election.
The deadline to vote in Oregon is 8 p.m.
Rob Manning
/Staff at Multnomah County Elections Office collect ballots from a dropbox in Southeast Portland, Nov. 6 2018.
Copyright 2018 Oregon Public Broadcasting