Portland ballot count stumbles into third weird day (Jack Bog's Blog)

It's a pretty sad statement about our country that we can't announce the result of a local election -- not even a preliminary result, before any recount -- 60 hours after the polls close. But that's where Portland is in the Metro president race. At the moment, Tom Hughes's lead over Bob Stacey has grown from 272 to 281, but the three counties in the Metro district are still screwing around with their glacial ballot counts. Indeed, at the end of Thursday, Multnomah County showed more uncounted ballots than it did at the end of Wednesday. Go figure.

As of this hour, here are the counted votes, and our own projection as to where the rest of the votes will go:

This assumes that there remain to be counted the following numbers of ballots in the three Metro counties:

Multnomah 10,994 (285,814 returned per Secretary of State Thursday morning, minus 274,820 counted on Multnomah County website tonight)

Clackamas 4,801 (158,505 returned per SOS Thursday morning minus 153,704 counted per ClackCo tonight)

Washington 12,417 (190,072 returned per SOS Thursday morning minus 177,655 counted per WashCo tonight)

And of course, anything can happen in a recount, which there most assuredly will be in this race.

Comments (7)

Maybe our Overlords haven't told MultCo who should win this race?

Posted by Mister Tee | November 5, 2010 6:11 AM

I'm getting a keystone Kops feeling from all this.

"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence"

Posted by Lc Scott | November 5, 2010 6:21 AM

Good one. Much akin to....
"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity"

Posted by David E Gilmore | November 5, 2010 6:38 AM

Josef Stalin said: "It matters not who votes. What matters is who counts the votes"

I know all about that running for a seat on the local power company board of directors, Wasco electric Co-operative. Wasco Electric holds the elections, counts the votes and declares the winners.

There is nothing fair or impartial about their elections as we (the members or voters) do not have the right to free and fair elections.

See: http:www.reformwascoelectric.com for more information.

Posted by Britt Storkson | November 5, 2010 6:48 AM

If I were Dino Rossi, I would have nightmares about boxes of ballots being counted twice.

Posted by Mister Tee | November 5, 2010 6:52 AM

Don't assume there will be a recount. I believe that an automatic recount is only triggered when the difference is less than 1/5th of 1 percent. In this race, that equals approx. 800 votes by my math (which admittedly isn't the best). If Hughes wins by more than that, no automatic recount. Stacey can ask for a recount, but he'd have to pay for it, or get the trust fund sugar daddy wine guy from Yamhill County who bankrolled his campaign to pay for it.

Posted by Columbia County Kid | November 5, 2010 10:37 AM

Jack-
The difference you have been seeing in the numbers is that the SOS number includes "challenged" ballots that the counties don't include- they have been "received" by the SOS standards but not "accepted" by county standards. Challenged ballots are ones where the signatures don't match and the voter needs to come in- or two ballots were mailed because the voter moved and they wait to ensure only one is counted. Of Multnomah's about 5,000 are challenge, Washington has about 2,000 and Clackamas says they have 400. The final numbers will include some, but not all, of these challenged ballots.

It is still true that the majority of ballots are in Washington and Clackamas where Hughes holds the lead.

Posted by Stacey Dycus | November 5, 2010 11:47 AM

Search this site

About

Clippings

Archives

Links

E-mail, Feeds, 'n' Stuff

Friday, November 5, 2010

Portland ballot count stumbles into third weird day

Comments (7)

Sponsors

In Vino Veritas

The Occasional Book

Road Work