Have you ever wondered what path your Coos County ballot takes, from when it’s produced and sent to you, to when it’s cast and ultimately counted? Below is a brief explanation of the path your ballot takes over the course of the election. If you are interested in observing parts of this process, please see the Observation page of the Coos County website.

Your ballot begins. . .

Your ballot packet is prepared about 50 days before the election, and mailed 20 days before the election, as required by Oregon statute.

Your ballot is cast. . .

Mailed ballots are received and processed daily. Ballots returned to drop-sites are collected regularly by a team of two election couriers of different political parties. 

Your ballot arrives. . .

Upon receipt in the Coos County Election Office, ballots are scanned into the Oregon Centralized Voter Registration (OCVR) system. This is the step that allows voters to see that their ballot has been received on the Oregon Secretary of State’s website, My Vote.

Your ballot undergoes signature verification. . .

The signature on each return envelope is compared against signatures in the voters’ record. This is done by employees that have received signature verification training.

If a signature is determined to not match one in a voters’ record, it goes to a full-time staff member, with years of experience in handwriting analysis, for a second look. If the signature doesn’t match, the voter is sent a letter explaining that their ballot signature has been challenged and they have 21 days after the election to respond and provide a matching signature so that their vote can still be counted. This timeline is the same for voters that failed to sign their return identification envelope.

Ballots with matching signatures are moved to a secure storage location until they are ready to be opened.

Your ballot is opened. . . 

As soon as ballots are returned, election offices can begin to pre-process and scan ballots. In Coos County, an envelope opener is used to slit the bottom of return identification envelopes. Opened envelopes are then placed into a tray for opening boards to process.

A team of two employees, of different political parties, work together to remove ballots from return envelopes and prepare them to go through the tabulation machine. One employee, with return envelopes signature side down in front of them, removes the folded ballot from the envelope. The second employee takes the folded ballots, unfolds and flattens them.

Your ballot is counted. . .

Tabulation machines are in a secured room that is on a stand-alone system, not connected to the internet or any other network. In Coos County, Clear Ballot software is used.

Full-time employees run ballots through scanners to be tabulated. After being scanned, ballots are placed in a secure storage location.

Results are available for the first time at 8:00pm on election day, with a schedule for further results published on the election-specific webpage for each election.

Your ballot is adjudicated. . .

After ballots have been tabulated, two full-time staff members, of different political parties, review electronic images of ballots to ensure that votes were tallied correctly. If you have ever marked the wrong choice, crossed it out and marked a new option, then this is the process that ensured your vote was counted the way you intended.

This process is completed before the election is certified, no later than 27 days after the election.

Your ballot might be hand counted. . . 

After statewide and federal elections, counties perform post-election reviews. In Coos County, a selection of ballots are hand counted by teams of employees, of different political parties, with results compared against tabulator results.

Your ballot is stored. . . 

After certification and any hand counts, ballots and return identification envelopes are moved to a larger secure storage area for retention. Federal law requires voted ballots to be held for approximately two years after a federal election.