Have you ever wondered what path your ballot takes from the moment it’s cast to when it’s ultimately counted? The Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington and several lucky community members were able to learn firsthand by attending a “path of the ballot” virtual tour on Thursday, hosted by Multnomah County Elections voter education and outreach specialist Catherine McMullen.
McMullen connected with Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington program team manager Tessa Crosby over Zoom, led the Girl Scouts through the Multnomah County Duniway-Lovejoy Elections Building and fielded questions from the troop.
The tour started with a visit to the “Blue Room” where ballots are sorted and images of signatures from the ballot envelope are captured to ensure the votes can be counted.
“We verify every single signature on the back of every envelope. That’s why it’s really important that you make sure to sign the back of your ballot return envelope because we match that up with your voter registration record,” explained McMullen.
If the signature isn’t a 100 percent match to the voter registration signature, it goes before election workers with years of experience in handwriting analysis for a second, and sometimes third, look. Voters always receive a letter letting them know if their ballot has been challenged.
Next, McMullen led the troop to the basement of the building where ballots are opened starting one week before the election.
“There is a little suction of air that pulls the envelope away from the ballot, and then the election official pulls the ballot out of the envelope. The envelope goes in one tray and the ballot goes in the other,” said McMullen.
Then election officials open the ballot to prepare them for scanning, which takes place in the “Red Room.”
“The Red Room is a special room — there is no internet access and no network to the outside in there. And then the results aren’t even completely tabulated or released until 8 o’clock on election night, so we don’t know the results any sooner than you do,” said McMullen.
According to McMullen, as of Thursday, Oct. 29, six out of 10 Multnomah County voters had turned in their ballots, many of which have already been scanned in the Red Room.
“We opened 120,000 ballots on Wednesday, the first day that we could open ballots,” explained McMullen. “And they scanned 105,000 ballots the first day that we started scanning.”
The next visit was to the second floor, where election officials create replacement ballots for residents who moved or didn’t receive their ballots. Once replacement ballots are made, they are sent down a chute to customer service on the first floor, where voters wait to receive their new ballots.
The tour’s last stop was at the phone banking station where election officials answer questions pertaining to the election.
“In the last two weeks we have gotten 17,000 phone calls from voters asking questions, wanting to make sure they’re registered to vote, wanting to know when their ballot is going to be mailed to them, checking in to see if there was any sort of delay, or wanting to know where their Official Ballot Drop Site is,” McMullen said.
After the tour, McMullen answered questions from Girls Scouts, who asked a variety of insightful questions ranging from how signatures are verified to what election officials do in the off-season.
Click here for more information on the path of your ballot and visit the Multnomah County Elections Division website for any additional questions you may have about the Nov. 3 election.