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The Multnomah County Elections Division was scheduled to send out 560,000 ballots to county voters on Wednesday for the May election. Just one problem: The county erroneously included the District 3 county commissioner race, which only a portion of voters are eligible to vote on, on all printed ballots.
The county must now reprint the more than 500,000 ballots.
Tim Scott, Multomah County’s elections director, says a “proofing error” led to the mistake printed on the ballots. Scott says the county will have to reprint all the ballots originally scheduled to be mailed on Wednesday at a cost he estimates at more than $300,000. The ballots, Scott says, will be sent prior to May 2, but likely after the planned date of April 26.
That’s not all. Some 5,000 county voters already received the erroneous ballots, which means many received ballots that include a race for which they are not eligible to vote. Only voters who live in District 3, which extends from about 33rd to 148th avenues south of Interstate 84, are eligible to cast a ballot in the race to serve out the rest of Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson’s term after she was elected county chair last November. (Commissioner Diane Rosenbaum, Vega Pederson’s designated successor, now holds the seat but is not seeking election.)
Scott says the county will ensure only votes cast by eligible District 3 voters will be counted in the race.
The race features three candidates: community activist Albert Kaufman, longtime Portland Public Schools board member and former Nike executive Julia Brim-Edwards, and Ana del Rocio, a former nonprofit director who served as a policy adviser to Vega Pederson.