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Yamhill County clerk briefs commissioners on online voter registration, postmarks and records archiving
Summary
County Clerk Carrie Hinton told commissioners about implementation of House Bill 4133 (online voter registration changes), verification and signature procedures, USPS postmark guidance affecting ballots, a property-recording alert system with more than 800 users, and a digitization and archiving project for county records.
County Clerk Carrie Hinton gave a department update covering election administration, recordkeeping and ongoing preparations for a busy election year.
Hinton summarized House Bill 4133, enacted in 2022 and effective Jan. 1, 2023, which required the statewide online voter-registration system to allow qualified individuals to register using a valid Social Security number; she said the Secretary of State had until Jan. 1, 2026 to implement related changes and that the county now mirrors paper-card options in the online system. Verification steps include checking the last four digits of a Social Security number against the Social Security database and driver's-license numbers against DMV records; voters can also upload a signature for verification.
"Voter registration security remains a top priority, and we will continue to make sure all of those checks and balances and all of those laws are followed to ensure that everything is happening as it should be," Hinton said.
Hinton also described a recent U.S. Postal Service clarification about what counts as a postmark and advised that hand cancellation at a post office or dropping ballots in official ballot boxes are the most reliable ways to ensure timely postmarks. She said the county reports postmark statistics to the state and can provide counts on request.
On records, Hinton reported the county's property-recording alert system has more than 800 registered users. She outlined a digitization and preservation project in partnership with a records-management vendor and the state archives division to create a searchable public inventory and reduce wear on fragile original documents while retaining permanent hard copies.
Hinton warned the board that staff is planning for a budget cycle and anticipates vendor cost increases of 6% to 8% across the board for software and services; she also noted the clerk's office handles services such as marriage ceremonies and passport processing.
A construction contract for the new clerk's office building was noted as coming before the board the following week.
