The county clerk and elections staff briefed commissioners July 16 on recent elections, recording revenue trends and proposals to modernize records access.

Elections staff said turnout for the May 20 special election was about 30.25% countywide (roughly 20,000–24,000 ballots). Staff reviewed drop‑box usage and identified several heavy‑use sites (courthouse, North Albany, Timber Hill) and some low‑use locations (library). Commissioners discussed the optics and equity implications of removing a box from a public site but signaled support for consolidating underused boxes where service is redundant.

On systems and records, the clerk recommended moving Helion (records and deeds indexing) to a cloud SaaS offering at an estimated $17,000/year to improve security, enable online transactions (digital images with watermarks, purchase of certified copies), and simplify integration with the county’s new assessment system (OrCats). The clerk said cloud migration could also enable more public services online, such as dog‑license purchases and renewal.

Staff proposed pilot or “one‑stop” events at the county building to combine services—passports, dog licensing, even marriage ceremonies—to boost revenue and bring residents into county facilities. Clerk staff said dog‑licensing revenue is about $120,000 per year, with Corvallis paying about $62,000 under an IGA for city dogs.

Elections staff also noted the Secretary of State ended a contract with a vendor (No Inc.) that had been developing a proposed replacement statewide voter‑registration system; the change means vendor resources will instead go back to maintaining and improving the existing OCVR system. Commissioners were briefed on a Philomath City Council resolution to place a psilocybin measure on the Nov. 4 ballot and upcoming August 15 deadlines for submitting local measures.