A Clackamas County elections worker is under criminal investigation for tampering with ballots, WW has learned.
The underlying allegation is that the woman, whose name has not been released, filled in blanks on ballots turned into the county for the Nov. 6 general election.
Sources familiar with the incident say their understanding is that the woman filled in a straight Republican ticket on the ballots where preferences had been left blank by voters.
An emergency meeting called for by Democrats seeks more details on ballots, etc. US DOJ is making this a priority. There are monitors and a state trooper in the office.
Best of all, County Clerk Sherry Hall will be facing a recall effort:
"Sherry Hall has been a source of concern for years," said Dave Adams, a Stafford Hamlet resident and one of the organizers of the recall effort. "What concerns me most is that Sherry Hall is so incredibly incompetent it's just unbelievable that she's actually in charge of county elections."
The recall effort "will be launched this week," he said.
UPDATE 11/5:
Suspect Ballots Won't Count in Clackamas Country; Others Quarantined
"There are two (ballots) that are highly suspect, is what we heard," Lehan said. "(Attorney General) Ellen Rosenblum said they'd sequestered all the ballots handled by this individual and are examining all of them. We don't know if that's 20 or 200. She didn't disclose that."
The initial ballot suspected of being tampered with on Oct. 31 "is evidence" and is not expected to be counted in the Nov. 6 election, County Counsel Stephen Madkour said. Because the ballot was removed from the secrecy envelope, there is no way to identify or contact the original voter, he said.
The voter apparently used a pen, and the elections employee is alleged to have used a pencil, Madkour said. "There is only one individual checked by the initial hand of the voter and the rest were pencil marks," Madkour said...
Workers usually have pencils or pens in order to log ballots during processing, he said, though the employee under investigation is thought to have brought in the pencil herself.
Since the incident, workers logging ballots are using only fluorescent green and yellow pens because the ballot scanning machines cannot read those colors, Sideras said.
