Residents press county on election security, ballot chain-of-custody and observation at public comments

Several Washington County residents criticized election processes and urged changes to voter registration, vote-by-mail practices, ballot observation and ballot counting during public comment at the Board of Commissioners’ Jan. 21 meeting.

The comments came during two public-comment periods before a scheduled election office work session; speakers asked the board to consider changes to registration oversight, chain-of-custody for mailed ballots, more meaningful in-person observation of ballot handling, and hand-counting of ballots during audits.

Why it matters: Residents say these issues affect public confidence in election outcomes. County staff had scheduled a separate, in-depth work session on election debriefing later the same day; commenters said that session takes place in a work session format that limits public participation.

What residents said

- Jill Brand, a Washington County resident, said she and other residents had requested a public work session on election issues for months and worried the planned debrief would “paint a rosy feel-good picture” rather than dig into substantive problems. Brand said, “The bottom line is our ballots and votes are not safe and secure. Voters have become disillusioned and disenfranchised.”

- Sandra Nelson referenced a permanent administrative order from the Oregon Secretary of State dated Oct. 23, 2024 and the list of agencies authorized to register voters, pointing out that citizenship is not a required field on the minimum registration card. She said the Oregon DMV had registered tens of thousands of individuals of unknown citizenship status and asked how many such records exist on Washington County rolls.

- Roger W. Law advocated for public, hand-counted audits. He described the labor-intensive hand-count method used in some risk-limiting audits and argued other jurisdictions and many democracies use publicly observable hand counting; he said, “We need to return to our roots. Counting ballots by machine is a recent phenomenon.”

- Mary Helcioppalos said vote-by-mail cannot be made secure once ballots leave a voter’s possession and urged the board to seek chain-of-custody best practices the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) recommends. She said Washington County election accounting and recordkeeping “leave much to be desired,” and cited apparent anomalies in return-date records obtained via public records requests.

- Karen Schmidlin, who has served as an election observer, urged more meaningful observation access than the remote observer room used in November 2024. She asked that observers be allowed in-person line-of-sight access to receiving, signature verification, duplication and tabulation areas (while maintaining security) and requested that counts be posted publicly at the beginning and end of each counting day.

Board response and next steps

Chair Harrington and county staff noted that the election office planned a detailed work session after public comment so members of the public could remain for the debrief. County staff later confirmed that management would report back to the board on public comments and questions raised by speakers. No formal board action was taken during the meeting; the board moved to the scheduled election work session later in the day.

Ending: Residents pressing for changes to registration practices, vote-by-mail chain of custody and observation will have the county’s planned election work session later the same day for staff presentations; speakers asked the board to consider systemic changes rather than limited explanations at a single debrief.