As Oregon's May primary approaches, KLCC is answering your "frequently asked questions" about the elections process.
First, here are some basics:
- The 2024 Oregon primary is May 21.
- The deadline to register is April 30. You can register to vote at the Secretary of State's website.
- The deadline to change political parties, or update your address, is also April 30.
Monday's question
Our first question came from Veronica, who submitted it through the America Amplified portal that you can find on our Elections Coverage page. Veronica, who lives in Eugene, has a child attending college in Portland.
“They want to make sure their ballot gets to them in time (so) that they can also get it back to the county where they are voting," asked Veronica. "They may want to vote in the county where they are in school, or they may want to vote in their home county.”
It's a common question asked by many people who are living away from home temporarily, either to attend school or on a job assignment. For an answer, KLCC turned to Molly Woon, the Elections Director for the Oregon Secretary of State's office.
“I would say that they have two options," said Woon. "One, if they so choose, they can register to vote at their new address in Portland. And they also—if they’re planning on returning home after college—can register at their address in Lane County, or stay registered there, and then they can select the option to have their ballot mailed to them in Portland.”
Tuesday's question
This question is especially relevant for the primary, which is coming up on May 21: Who can even vote in the primary?
On the one hand, the answer to that is easy: Everyone can vote in the primary. Well, every registered voter, that is.
As of this month, there are 3,032,333 people who are registered to vote in Oregon, according to the Secretary of State's office. If you're eligible but you're somehow not registered yet, you can seal the deal fairly quickly using the registration form on the Secretary of State's website.
You have until April 30 to register if you want to vote in the May primary. But there’s more to the answer than that.
While every registered voter will get a ballot, there are some races that will only be open to people who are registered with a specific political party. For instance, if you want to vote in the presidential primary, you’ll have to be registered as either a Democrat or a Republican. That’s also true for most statewide races including Secretary of State as well as races for the state legislature or Congress.
In fact, just 57% of registered voters in Oregon belong to one of the two major parties, meaning that roughly 43% of voters won't be able to select nominees in the taxpayer-funded primaries held by Democrats and Republicans.
If you're among that 43%, you can sign up for a major party by that same April 30 deadline. Oregon places no limits on how often a voter can change parties, except during the three-week period between the voter registration deadline and the election.
BUT: If you decide you'd like to remain as an unaffiliated voter…or if you’re a member of a third party…you’ll STILL get a ballot. What’s on it will depend on where you live, but many voters will see a local bond measure or two, as well as nonpartisan races such as district attorney, judge or mayor.
That all changes in the fall, of course, when all voters will be able to vote in all races during the General Election.
Wednesday's question
Today's question is critically important and it's one with a quick-and-easy answer … that also has some nuance.
Here it is: What is the deadline to vote in Oregon?
Most people who've voted know the answer to this: 8 p.m. on Election Night.
BUT … there’s a little more to it than that. For years in Oregon, that was the end of the story. If elections officials didn’t have your ballot by 8 p.m. on Election Night, your vote wasn’t counted. That was true whether you had placed your ballot in the mail or had put it into a drop box.
But recently, there’s been a change, and it’s called the postmark rule. What it means is that your ballot counts as long as it’s postmarked by Election Day. So even if it doesn’t show up at the Elections office until —let’s say—three days later, it will still count.
But you have to be careful! If you drop it in a mailbox after the mail has been picked up that day, it won’t be postmarked until the NEXT day, meaning it won’t count. So if you’re the kind of voter who waits until the last minute, the safest bet is still to use one of the official elections drop boxes that will accept your ballot until 8 p.m.
The Oregon Secretary of State's office maintains a map of ballot drop boxes in Oregon at its website, although the map won't be available until 20 days before Election Day. A list of drop boxes is also available in the voters pamphlet. Lane County also maintains a list of drop boxes on its website.
Thursday's question
So you’ve filled out your ballot…signed the envelope…and either dropped it in the mail or put it into a ballot dropbox. How do you know if it ever got to the right place?
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office has an easy way to find out if your ballot actually got to the people who count the votes. They have a tool called “My Vote” on their website. Once you’re there, it’s pretty easy. You just enter your first and last name and your date of birth, and it will tell you.
In theory, you could do that for anyone whose full name and birthday you know. That’s because whether or not you voted is public information in Oregon. And that’s all the website will tell you. HOW you vote is, of course, private information.
Some counties go even further in confirming whether your ballot has been accepted, by offering a ballot tracking system that will notify you by text or email when they’ve received your ballot. You have to sign up for that in advance in most cases, but once you do that, you won’t have to go online and enter your info each time. Not all counties in Oregon offer that service. Lane County, for instance, does not.
Friday’s question
Voting isn’t just about filling out the ballot. Eventually, we’d like to know who won, or which side of a ballot measure prevailed. So, how soon will we learn the election results?
Most counties in Oregon release a first batch of results shortly after the deadline to submit a ballot, which is 8 p.m. on Election Night. Typically, this includes ballots that were received prior to Election Day.
Elections officials are permitted to tabulate ballots prior to the deadline to vote, but they’re not permitted to release those results until after 8 p.m. on Election Night.
Because the first batch includes a high number of ballots, the initial results can often provide a good indication of how the election will turn out. But because all ballots are counted equally, it’s often difficult to draw a definitive conclusion with the first batch of results, since it’s unknown how many additional ballots remain to be counted.
That’s because elections workers make a final round of drop box collections just after 8 p.m., and those ballots need to be transported to a central elections office before they can be counted.
Some counties, including Lane, release a second round of results later on Election Night. The Lane County Elections Office says this second batch “typically include ballots received during Election Day morning ballot box collection.”
Ballots that are dropped off in the final hours generally aren’t counted until the next day, when–in Lane’s case–another batch of results are released at 5 p.m. (Most counties post a schedule of when they plan to release results, and not all counties post results as frequently as Lane.)
To further complicate matters, Oregon’s relatively new “postmark rule” means that any ballot postmarked by Election Day will be counted, as along as it arrives in the elections office in the coming week. That means valid ballots can still arrive up to seven days later, and no one can say for sure how many will arrive in this manner.
Also, any ballot can be placed in any drop box in Oregon, so if you’re on a trip to eastern Oregon and want to drop your ballot off in, say, Baker City, elections workers in that county will send it to your home county. That, too, takes time.
And–in extremely close races–observers have to wait until some ballots are “cured,” meaning a voter whose signature has been challenged has a chance to verify their ballot at an elections office. This is often a very small number of ballots when compared to the total number cast, but it can, on rare occasions, potentially affect the outcome.
What it means is that for close races, it can take several days to determine a likely winner. Sometimes, however, the margin in the initial set of results is so prohibitive that candidates or ballot measure campaigns feel confident enough to declare victory or concede defeat.
Media organizations will often make pronouncements based on early returns. These determinations usually end up being correct, though not always.
The Oregonian famously goofed in 2020 when it prematurely declared Mark Hass the winner of the Democratic primary for Secretary of State. And of course, we all know that Dewey did NOT defeat Truman in 1948.
Regardless of what political campaigns or news outlets say, the official results are determined by elections offices. Under Oregon law, these offices have nearly a month to publish the official results. For the May 2024 primary, it means that final results might not be available until June 17.
Tune in to Morning Edition on Friday at 6:45 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. for the final installment in our series.
