The Hall Monitor (because some one has to)

Clackamas County Election Updates:

With the current county clerk’s continued, incompetent handling of the blurred ballot debacle, concerned voters will want to learn from Catherine McMullen, who’s running for Clackamas County Clerk in November. Honored with Clackamas County Democrats Jill Thorn award, McMullen’s clear-headed comments on the ballot issue will convince you of how important it is that we can elect a competent, experienced professional to this position. See Accountability and Outcome Possibilities for Clackamas County’s Delayed Elections

While our endorsed candidate for District 5 Congressional representative, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, holds a commanding lead in the primary election, the outcome will not be determined until Clackamas County can duplicate by hand thousands of (mostly Democratic) ballots. It is imperative that we have volunteer Democrats observing the process at all times.

In addition to volunteers from both parties, both McLeod-Skinner’s and incumbent Kurt Schrader’s campaigns are allowed one observer on hand to ensure accuracy of the duplication process. But the county clerk’s office has apparently violated state law by allowing a representative of the Schrader campaign into the office an hour before allowing in an observer from McLeod-Skinner’s campaign. McLeod-Skinner has filed a complaint.

The incident is yet another irregularity that underscores how important it is for Democrats in Clackamas County to volunteer for a 90-minute election observer shift. Please sign up today!

In response to the Clackamas County ballot debacle, the Pamplin Media Group’s editorial board has an excellent suggestion: “Sherry Hall must leave clerk's office and make room for qualified candidate Catherine McMullen.” Read the editorial board’s reasoning, which they note as “easy.. since it was a decision that we've already made — repeatedly.”

"Hall should resign now, so that Clackamas County commissioners can appoint McMullen and ensure a smooth transition for the elections office. In resigning, Hall would avoid prolonging what we believe will be her inevitable departure from office after the November election."

It’s two days after the election and Clackamas County voters have no idea who won anything. Why? Because only a small fraction of votes have been counted. Why? It can only be described as a cascade of errors by County Clerk Sherry Hall. As one county commissioner put it today, “a perfect storm” has nearly put our elections operations out of business.

The fault lies with Hall, and not her hard-working staff; they are working above and beyond the call of duty, crafting creative solutions to almost impossible problems.

At the beginning of this election cycle, the printer used to print official county election ballots lost its certification. Instead of changing printers, Sherry Hall stayed with the out-of-county printer she has used for years. Given that the printer had lost their rating was a warning signal that was not heeded.

This election was made even more complicated by redistricting which demanded completely redrawing and re-ordering a large number of precincts. She re-ordered and changed so many that the final version maps issued by the Secretary of State show Clackamas County had precincts with non-contiguous boundaries and voters still identified as being in non-existent precincts.

It all began unraveling the week of May 4th, several days after the ballots had been mailed. The Elections Office started to scan the returning ballots and discovered that the printer had blurred the “bar codes” on many ballots making them unreadable by the vote-recording scanners.

Shortly thereafter, both the Secretary of State’s office and some neighboring Counties offered assistance. According to the public record, Sherry Hall refused this assistance and even attempted to make political gain by labeling it as political interference by the Secretary of State.

Elections staff developed one correction strategy after another, each following Oregon election guidelines which require every vote to be counted. In teams of two, county staff are replicating unreadable ballots onto readable ballots and double checking their work. A team of two can do about 140 ballots in a six-hour shift. There are about 40,000 ballots that haven’t yet been checked to see if they have bad bar codes. Results will be slow in being made available to the public as a result.

When pushed by commissioners, Hall was unable to state flatly that all the ballots would be counted by June 14, the date the official results must be officially certified, count completed.

Commissioner Sonya Fischer, at yesterday’s emergency County Commissioners meeting made it clear she and the Board expected Hall to accept any and all appropriate help to meet the June deadline. The County Administrator Gary Schmidt pledged between 200 to 1,000 additional County employees to help clean up this backlog. This reserve army of ballot replicators will be on the front lines as soon as they are trained. Sherry Hall has now agreed to accept their help. In addition, the County Administrator has expanded the election processing area to other secure premises in the building to help expedite the process.

Prior to election the Clerk also promised to have a significant portion of the vote results on the web by 8:00PM on Election Day. That of course didn’t happen on either count.

The only bright spot so far is that both our Party and the County Republican Party have to date understood that there is a difference between elected official incompetence and intentional and orchestrated fraud. “This situation is not fraud--I am proud that our citizens have so far been able to avoid the toxic national culture that politicizes every error as fraud when no fraud exists, undermining our democratic institutions,” said Jan Lee, Chair of the Democratic Party of Clackamas County. Chair Lee added, “but this year’s election process calls upon our voters to rectify this situation in November by electing a highly qualified candidate for County Clerk.”

By 5,921 votes, Sherry Hall was re-elected as County Clerk in 2018, despite a long list of errors and mistakes including favoritism in how she administered her office and lacking sufficient oversight to prevent actual election fraud. One of the vote counters was filling in votes ballots where the voter had skipped voting for that particular office, for example. In that election, 52,415 voters who had voted for other candidates on the ballot failed to select a candidate for County Clerk.

In this 2022 election, voters must pay attention to selecting an effective candidate for County Clerk, by going down the ballot as they vote and assuring they make a selection that will bring more stability and effectiveness to the position of County Clerk. The County government itself has no ability to direct the elected official for County Clerk. We must do that by selecting the right candidate in November, Catherine McMullen, who has the background and experience to do the job.