If you are registered to vote in Lincoln County, don’t listen to the noise coming from Washington, D.C. about voting by mail.
There will be ample time to mark your ballot and return it, says Lincoln County Clerk Dana Jenkins. Mailing envelopes are pre-paid so it won’t cost you a cent. And, as in the past 20 years, there will be daily pickups of ballots from specially marked drop boxes in all Lincoln County cities. And there’s even a way to track your ballot once you return it.
In a special statement this week, Jenkins said he wanted to reassure voters that the county elections department is gearing up for the Nov. 3 general election.
President Donald Trump has been casting doubt on the veracity of mail-in ballots, saying they are open to widespread fraud and abuse. There is no evidence of that, say elections officials in Oregon and across the country.
And there is widespread concern among some people that recent cutbacks to the U.S. Postal Service could delay mail or absentee ballots.
That’s also not the case, Oregon officials say.
Oregon became the first state in the country to go an exclusively vote-by-mail system more than two decades ago.
Oregon Secretary of State Bev Clarno, a Republican, said in a recent statement that the state’s long relationship with the Postal Service helps give her confidence that the Oregon vote will go smoothly.
Jenkins has served as Lincoln County Clerk since 1991 and has been in charge for every local election during the mail ballot era.
He said the county will deliver local ballots to the Portland USPS processing plant on Oct. 14. Ballots should reach local mailboxes Oct. 16-17.
If a voter is planning to return the ballot through the mail, Jenkins recommends mailing it by Oct. 27.
Under a law passed by the 2019 Legislature, ballots dropped at Post Offices no longer require postage.
However, voters have the option of using several ballot drop boxes that the clerk’s office maintains during election cycles. Ballots left at drop boxes anytime until 8 p.m. Nov. 3 will be collected by elections department workers and counted.
Drop boxes have been refurbished recently and will be placed at the county courthouse in Newport and city halls in Yachats, Waldport, Lincoln City, Newport, Depoe Bay and Siletz. Toledo’s ballot box is located in the police station parking lot. Additionally, a drop box is offered at Eddyville School on Election Day.
All boxes are secured and their contents are picked up daily by elections staff.
There is also a way for voters to track their ballot. Every ballot envelope has a unique barcode to allow voters can track their ballot on the Oregon Secretary of State’s My Vote website.
Oregon residents can still register to vote by going to the Lincoln County elections office in Newport or going online to the Secretary of State’s voter registration portal.
General elections – where voters are choosing a president and deciding lots of other local races – have a significantly higher turnout than non-presidential, May primary or special elections.
In the November 2018 general election in which there was not a presidential race, there were 24,600 votes cast in Lincoln County for a 70 percent turnout. In November 2016, when voters were deciding a race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, there were 25,700 votes cast in Lincoln County for an 80 percent turnout rate.
