Small Error Reported On Washington County Ballots

Washington County, Ore. –  There is a little problem on the ballots of Washington county voters. Philip Bransford with Washington county apologized, saying it looks like the words YES and NO are randomly inserted on the four Oregon statewide measures. KXL’s Jacob Dean talked with him about it.

They met with the Secretary of State’s office and concluded the awkward typo will not impact the outcome of the measures, and does not really confuse voters, it’s just an out-of-place typo. He says most voters are not confused by the error.

Click here to see the typo on the ballot.

Click here to read more from elections officials.

Here is a copy of the statement from Philip:

Format error includes extra words on ballot
Release date: 10/16/2020

Sponsored by: Assessment and Taxation Department, Elections Division
Error discovered in ballot explanation wording of four state measures

Washington County Elections officials have discovered an error in the four state ballot measures’ explanation of the result of the vote on the General Election ballot.

According to Washington County Election Manager, Mickie Kawai, all State measures (107, 108, 109 and 110) were printed with the response of “Yes” and “No” randomly buried in the content of the “Result of ‘Yes’ Vote:” and “Result of ‘No’ Vote:” sections on the ballot. This error was created when the certified (pdf) text was converted, copied, and pasted into the ballot design software. This extra text was not noticed when proofing the content. According to Kawai, “We will be reviewing our proofing procedures and will seek advice from other counties and other states as to their proofreading actions in an effort to create a system that will prevent errors like this in the future.”

Kawai consulted with the Secretary of State’s office and got confirmation that, despite the extra “Yes” and “No” in the “Result of” sections for each measure, the ovals for actually voting “Yes” or “No” on the ballot measures are correct and will still get counted as intended. Voters can utilize the summary flyer that is included with the mailed ballot or the State’s Voters’ Pamphlet for the full text and a correct “Result of “yes”/”no” Vote” statement.