By HANNAH SIEVERT
CENTRAL OREGON DAILY
Election Day may be over, but not all ballots have been counted yet in Deschutes County.
Voters who submitted a ballot with no signature or a signature that didn’t match the one the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office has on file still have a few things to do before their vote can be counted.
“We compare every ballot signature to the voter’s record, whether that’s on a voter registration card or from the DMV,” Nancy Blankenship, Deschutes County Clerk, said.
The Clerk’s office has asked around 2,100 voters so far to prove the signature on their ballot is really theirs. Blankenship said that is under two percent of the ballots they received.
“We had a lot of people who haven’t voted for a long time, so their old signatures are a lot different from what they do today,” Blankenship said. “Some of those are younger people whose signatures have matured and changed significantly.”
Roughly 170 ballots had no signature at all.
“We really do have a very small amount of ballots that we challenged the signature of they forgot to sign,” Blankenship said. “And an extremely small amount of people forgot to sign their ballot.”
When the Clerk’s Office challenges a signature, they send instructions to the voter with instructions outlining what they need to do to get their vote to count.
The voter has fourteen days to follow those instructions.
“Don’t feel bad if we challenged your signature,” Blankenship said. “Just return the card so we can validate the signature and get your ballot counted.”
