Explainer & Lessons Learned From the Ballot Drop Box Fires in Multnomah County, Oregon and Clark County, Washington
Paul Gronke (Reed College) and Paul Manson (Center for Public Service at Portland State University), for the Elections & Voting Information Center in Portland, Oregon*
Current version: November 1, 2024
As many news outlets have reported, on Monday, October 28, 2024, drop boxes in Multnomah County, Oregon and Clark County, Washington were set on fire by someone who attached an incendiary device designed to breach metal and create intense heat. Election officials and law enforcement in both counties have been quick to respond.
This essay is the Elections & Voting Information Center’s (EVIC) contribution to helping citizens understand what happened—to the best of our knowledge—and conveying information about these events to a national audience that is suddenly focused on election administration in our region.
What happened?
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Vote Early, Vote In Person? Multnomah County Voters Take Advantage of Long Voting Period and Ballot Drop Boxes
For a full vote-by-mail jurisdiction, Multnomah County voters love voting in person! Data from the county shows that over half of November 2020 voters returned their ballots by hand at a drop box (rather than through the mail), and voters in precincts near drop boxes are most likely to utilize official drop sites. Despite changes to people’s daily habits in the pandemic, voters here really enjoy the convenience and security of dropping their ballots off in person at a neighborhood drop box. This is the first of two posts exploring data from Multnomah County about where and when voters returned their ballots in November 2020.
Nice history and overview of the system, by Jen Kirby:
Oregon already votes by mail. Here’s what it can teach us in 2020.
Voter Turnout With Postage Paid VBM Ballots
By Paul Gronke and Jay Lee ’19
Oregon is in the midst of an experiment: how will voter turnout change in response to free paid postage on ballot return envelopes? Already, as shown in the figure below, we have some indications that turnout could exceed the 40% level of 2008. The 2008 and 2020 lines are eerily similar.
But many things have changed in the state that makes it difficult to make comparisons until we have the certified voter file.
Continue readingI’ve always been proud of the description bestowed upon me by John Lindback, previously the director of elections for the State of Oregon and now a senior officer in the Elections Initiatives at the Pew Center on the States.
John once introduced me by saying: “Paul Gronke, who is frustratingly even handed with respect to vote by mail.”
Today’s posting is in John’s honor. It doesn’t make an argument for or against voting by mail, but it does show how well VBM can work in a mature system, and how many of the concerns that have been expressed about “early” early voting simply aren’t an issue in the Beaver State. (For illustrations, see CNN’s election blog here, or Bloomberg here which I addressed earlier here.)
After 12 years, how many Oregonians are “early” early voters?
Today’s Oregonian reports 30% of registered voters in the state have returned their ballots by the close of business on Tuesday, one week before election.
This return rate is comparable with past elections. Column 7 in this Table from the Secretary of State’s office shows ballot returns one week out: 34% (2012 primary), 26% (2010 general), 30% (2010 primary), 42% (2010 January special, 29% (2008 general).
Oregon’s voter turnout is high–69.3% of voter eligible population and 85.7% of registered voters so it’s not the case that these ballot totals reflect a disengaged electorate.
The facts are these:
- In a state that has had one of the most liberal early voting regimes for 12 years, as few as 25% and seldom over 40% of ballots arrive a week before Election Day.
- In most elections, approximately 25% (18-38%) of ballots are returned on Election Day.
- Finally, as I’d blogged about previously, Oregon (and Washington) somehow manage to make this all work even though they mail their domestic ballots approximately two weeks before election day, the shortest by mail transit time in the country.
Say what you will about vote by mail, but make sure what you say comports with the facts on the ground.
In our last post, we looked at ballot return methods among Multnomah County, Oregon voters in the November 2020 election. As the most populous county in the first state to adopt vote by mail in 2000, Multnomah is an interesting case to explore voter use and adaptation over two decades of voting by mail. November 2020 is also interesting because the state began to pay for return postage as of August 2019, leading one well-known advocacy group to describe Oregon as a state where “every mail box is a drop box.” But is this actually how voters responded?
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