While primary election results will become available at 8:00 PM on Election Day, voters will have to wait a few days for the results of some of the most closely watched races.

The likely delay stems from the trend of Oregon voters, particularly those in the Portland area, waiting until Election Day to turn in their ballots, plus the added complexity of Portland’s new ballot system.

When election offices in at least a few large counties release the first round of preliminary results on election night, a large percentage of ballots will still not be tabulated. This will likely leave significant uncertainty as to how the contests are closed – such as the race for Oregon’s 5th congressional districtMeasure 117 on ranked-choice voting and the Portland mayor’s race – it can go.

But the early uncertainty in the races should not be a cause for concern, election officials stressed.

“There would be no reason to be alarmed or to worry,” said Clackamas County Clerk Catherine McMullen. “It means the process is going well and we’re doing things right.”

In recent elections, many ballots were counted on election night or even later. In 2020, when the pandemic contributed to a huge nationwide increase in mail-in voting, the Associated Press didn’t call the presidential election until the Saturday after the election. Oregon voters also tended to return ballots on Election Day itself rather than cast them earlier.

In the November 2022 election, for example, 32% of people who voted Multnomah County returned their ballot on election day. In Washington County30% of people returned their ballots that day and in Clackamas43% did the same. This spring, in the May primary, 49 percent of Multnomah ballots arrived at the election office on or after Election Day.

To help protect voters, poll workers and election integrity, a newly announced federal election officer for Oregon – Assistant US Attorney Ethan Knight – will help investigate voting rights concerns, threats of violence against election officials and voter fraud , as part of the US Department of Justice. the national program on election day.

Votes cast that day are all counted and included in the official results – but most won’t be processed by the initial 8pm report. Instead, they are likely included in the updates posted on Wednesday morning or afternoon or in the following days.

“If you want your vote to be counted … in the election night results, send it back to us” before the deadline to mail or drop in on Election Day, McMullen said.

Once results begin to be released, the larger the margin of a race and the larger the number of ballots, the more conclusive the results appear to media outlets deciding whether they can safely call race results.

Betsy Hammond, politics and education editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive, has called elections for the media since 2010. In Portland, ballots that are turned in later are often more progressive than earlier ones, but not to a predictable degree, she said. So when only 60 percent or so of the total ballots are included in the initial results report, she often has to wait for more votes to be tabulated before calling close races.

When “there are so many ballots that haven’t been counted yet,” Hammond said, “… nobody knows exactly what those ballots are going to do.”

In addition, ballots will continue to arrive at election offices even after November 5. In 2021, Oregon passed House Bill 3291, which allows voters to mail their ballots as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day and received up to a week after.

Ballots that trickle in after Tuesday can make a vital difference in the closest races, although Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said in the past it was only a “very small percentage” of the total ballots.

In Portland, Hammond said adopting ranked-choice voting would likely further complicate the process. In both council and mayoral races, voters can rank up to six candidates for the first time this year.

Once the ballots are tabulated, the candidates with the fewest votes will be eliminated one by one and their votes will be reallocated to the next viable choice of their constituents. This happens until one mayoral candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, and in an even more complex process, until three City Council candidates from each district receive 25% plus one vote. If a council candidate reaches more than 25% before all the winners are decided, the winner’s additional votes are allocated to the voters’ next choices.

John Horvick, senior vice president of polling firm DHM Research, said this mechanism adds another variable he’ll have to consider when calling races for FOX 12. Now, it’s not just the front-runners whose ties it matters. If a third- and fourth-place candidate are neck-and-neck, they will have to judge which one drops to decide whose votes should be reallocated first.

The unfamiliarity of that system means both Hammond and Horvick could wait longer to call races, particularly City Council contests.

“We — the collective, and I personally — will learn more about the mechanics or just the things to expect as we have more choices,” Horvick said. “For the first time, I’m just like, I’m just humble about: What do I think I know? And what will I learn that I don’t already know?”

Another reason to expect delays in race calls: Multnomah County will only release one results report for ranked-choice races on election night, though it will update other results four times throughout the night. Scott said this is because ranked choice reports take longer to compile.

But by Thursday, Scott said most of the results had been historically recorded. In the last four previous November elections, 97% to 98% of the ballots were tabulated that evening. In the closest race, however, that might not be enough for a call: In 2014, for example, statewide Measure 92 requiring GMO labeling was defeated by a margin of just 0, 06 percentage points.

Election offices across the state will continue to process ballots and issue periodic results updates through the Dec. 2 certification deadline. This allows time to “resolve” problem ballots – for example, for voters whose signatures are challenged to come to election offices to sign them again – ensuring that as many votes as possible can be counted.

“Many parts of the process are deliberately designed to increase access to our democracy for eligible voters and to make the voting process as easy as possible for them,” the secretary of communications’ director of communications said in an email. Oregon State Laura Kerns. “But doing that means taking more time or effort on the part of election administrators.”

— Aviva Bechky covers politics and education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. They can be contacted at [email protected] or on X to @avivabechky.

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