28 fails at polls

Voters have turned out in droves to vote on a temporary income tax increase that has exposed deep divisions in the electorate.

State elections officials expect the voter turnout in this special election to exceed 60 percent, breaking the record held by the last big ticket special election without a candidate, 1997’s ballot measure reevaluating physician-assisted suicide.

Ballot boxes were located at most county libraries, as well as stand-alone ballot collection stands.

A Multnomah County elections official said that Tuesday was relatively slow during the day, but expected things to pick up after 6:00 p.m. as people begin to get off work.

While ballots at drop boxes are collected the entire day periodically, the bulk of the last day ballots come around 8:00 p.m. when the last runners return.

Thursday was the last failsafe day to mail in a ballot to County Elections so most last-minute voters choose to drop off their ballots at boxes.

While PSU hosted one of these official ballot collection boxes during the last election, November’s gubernatorial election, this time around, county officials decided not to maintain a box at PSU.

ASPSU decided to run an unofficial ballot drop box with interns overseeing the implementation.

At least two interns watched over the ballot box from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Each voter dropping off a ballot had to sign a waiver allowing ASPSU to drop the ballot off on their behalf, with students and faculty lining up to drop off their last minute votes.

522 ballots were collected throughout the day, with a large portion being collected mid-day, and nearly 100 ballots being collected in the last hours of service.

A Multnomah County elections official said that the county doesn’t recommend unofficial ballot boxing, as they’ve had problems with it in the past, but that there weren’t any regulations regarding the practice.

“With all the libraries and drop sites there’s really no need to do it,” she said.