A parade of cars wound through the parking lot at Clackamas County Clerk’s office early Tuesday afternoon as voters rushed to drop off their ballots.

Inside the clerk’s office, about 130 workers sat at tables, most of them temporary employees to help process the ballots. They moved efficiently, separating the ballots from the envelopes. Each wore a lanyard corresponding to their political affiliation.

The workers performed their democratic duties under the gaze of more than a dozen observers who spent the day peering into the closed chamber through a bank of wide windows.

Observers have been part of the electoral process for a long time; this fall, folks casting doubt on integrity US elections are going to local election offices to look for irregularities that they plan to use to challenge the results. The movement arose out of the extraordinary effort to deny the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

Last month, volunteers with United Sovereign Americans told Clackamas County commissioners that the 2022 election results were “fraudulent and illegal,” based on their own audit. The Western States Center, a Portland-based organization that monitors right-wing extremism, called the organization a “negative election” group. Oregon elections officials said the audit is riddled with misunderstandings and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

In Oregon City, the public is welcome to observe. Often, observers represent candidates or the Republican and Democratic parties. Those interested showed up on Tuesday, and as long as there was space — only 15 observers are allowed at a time — they were allowed in.

One Republican observer said Oregon needs to return to in-person voting and require voters to show proof of identity. “I don’t trust anything,” Mark Reaksecker, who lives in Oregon City.

Don Powers, co-chairman of the Oregon Republican Party’s Election Integrity Committee, said he worries about the handling of ballots where a voter’s intent is unclear. Those ballots end up being reviewed by pairs of poll workers, each from different parties.

“I tend to think there’s nothing nefarious going on here,” Powers said, referring to Clackamas County. “There’s a lot of people screaming and yelling and thinking we’re going to watch everything because they’re going to do something wrong.”

The powers that be looked out the window and over the shoulders of two workers deciphering ballots where the voter had partially filled in one rectangle and filled in the other asking whether unincorporated Clackamas County should ban psilocybin businesses.

He said that while he sometimes doesn’t understand or agree with election workers’ decisions, “these are good people.”

Jennifer Constantine and Mark Smith, both representing Clackamas County Democrats, stood together watching workers stack ballots to prepare them for processing.

Constantine, who like Smith lives in Wilsonville, said he plans to stay for a six-hour shift.

“So far,” Constantine said, “I’m very impressed with the checks and balances in the system. It’s a good system. It seems very robust, with lots of redundancies built in to make sure things happen as they should.”

On the other side of the windows, poll workers remained focused on moving ballots through the system. A long afternoon and a long evening; most planned to continue working until 10 p.m

— Noelle Crombie is a business reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184; ncrombie@oregonian.

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