Clackamas County elections office outlines May 19 primary preparations and new tabulation system

County Clerk Katherine McMullen and elections manager Justin Larson updated the board on Clackamas County’s preparations for the May 19, 2026 primary election, describing equipment upgrades, accessibility options, mailing timetables and voter services.

McMullen reviewed operations from the November 4, 2025 special election, noting 125,940 eligible voters in the jurisdiction covered by that vote, routine logic-and-accuracy testing, and roughly 423 ballot challenges for signature issues. The county has contracted a Clear Ballot tabulation system to modernize ballot scanning and digital adjudication; staff ran a 6,600-ballot mock election in February to validate the new workflow.

The clerk highlighted accessibility upgrades, including voter-assist tablets at the county elections office and a Happy Valley vote center to allow voters with disabilities to mark ballots independently. The new ballot design uses an XY timing-mark grid (rather than barcodes) to lower printing risks.

Key deadlines and services: party-choice and voter-registration deadlines for the closed-party primary are April 28; ballots are scheduled to be mailed April 29 and should arrive for most voters by May 7; voters who do not receive a ballot by May 7 should contact the elections office. The elections office will operate 26 official outdoor ballot drop sites (15 with drive-up access), and a ballot-tracking service currently has about 47,000 signups (~15% of registered voters).

Commissioners asked about USPS postmark policy changes. McMullen advised voters to mail ballots a week early or, if mailing later, to obtain a postmark at the postal-service counter; returning ballots to official drop boxes remains valid through 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.