Does anybody know why it takes our state so freakin' long to count ballots?

[Arugula Latte]

I mean, I'm ecstatic that it looks like Merkley has won the Senate seat, but ... SHEESH! Why such a delay when states that have millions more ballots to count (and that do not have the vast majority of ballots ready and waiting by election day) are able to count them up in a fraction of the time?

[sandnsea]

1. Checking every signature

and processing every paper ballot. It takes time.

[Arugula Latte]

4. Vote-by-mail is great, but I guess we pay a price in speediness of the vote tally.

[0rganism]

2. Per Ted Wheeler's post at BlueOregon.com, it takes 2.5 days to tally Multnomah

Unlike the other counties in the state, Multnomah has ~360,000 ballots to go through.

Our mail-in system is centrally tabulated by county rather than by individual precinct. The county has 6 machines to do the counting at a rate of 1000 per hour, each. Do the math and you get 2.5 days. This is why Multnomah county is sloooooooow to come in.

Also, even with the mail-in ballots, they cannot start counting them early, although they can begin verifying signatures early and get something of a head start that way.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Okay, thanks for this info. That makes sense.

:hi:

[sandnsea]

5. Half the ballots came in yesterday

So they still have to verify half the signatures, before they even begin running them through the machines. If it was simply a matter of machines, they'd buy a few more. It's not just the tabulating. Every envelope has to be processed by hand, the secrecy envelope removed and the signature verified. That is what takes the time.

[0rganism]

6. "buy a few more"? not at a half million per machine, they won't.

optical scan tabulators with the durability to hold out for three days of continuous operation are not cheap.

Going by Mr. Wheeler's further comments, even though the larger ballots this year required an additional hand-processing stage to undo the extra fold, the backup has been due to the machines' processing rate. Signature checking and handling only has to go at 16.7 per minute to keep up, so I'd figure maybe 8 trained staff per machine input, 4 validating signatures and 4 prepping the ballots for input at a rate of just under 15 seconds each.

However, as you observed, half the ballots came in early. Those would probably already have their signature verification and at least part of the hand-prepping completed before Tuesday evening, priming the pipeline for the first 30 hours. Thereafter, one could use half the staff (2 validating and 2 prepping), or have twice the time per ballot (30s), or some intermediate combination.

The full results are expected Thursday afternoon, 2.5 days after counting began Tuesday evening. The math works out.

I think the real question becomes, is 2.5 days too long to wait for an election outcome? Balancing it against the 6 hour line waits in urban centers across the country, I think we come out ahead in vote-by-mail. But we do look like some kind of medieval backwater when everyone else has their counting done immediately at the precinct level and the other states are declaring results an hour after the polls close.

[sandnsea]

7. It's fine with me

But again, if it were just counting ballots, then every other state with opti-scan would still be counting too. It makes no sense that it's not enough machines.

[Tom Kitten]

8. budget cuts or whatever?

I would love to get a job helping our government count all the ballots these obnoxious citizens who like to vote seem to insist on delivering but there seems a process that precludes the unwashed masses from the start. I applied, I'm available, I'm smart, what's the deal?

[LWolf]

9. While the delay has been

explained in several posts above, I'd like to point out that paper ballots are well worth the time to count, imo.

Also worth the time and ease of voting; I have at least two weeks to sit in my robe with a cup of tea and ponder each choice, and I can either drop it in the mail or a drop-off box; no lines whatsoever.

I think Oregon's doing fine.

[Quantess]

10. I'm with you.

So what if we have to have extra time for counting the ballots. My voting experience was a heck of a lot easier than those people in parts of the midwest and east coast, who stood in line for hours. It was easier than walking a couple of blocks in pouring rain, when I lived in California.
I like Oregon's voting system.

[central scrutinizer]

11. Accuracy over speed anyday

The question should be: how can states that have the counts done so quickly be sure that they didn't screw something up by using unverifiable software to "computerize" the process?

[sandnsea]

12. We use unverifiable software

and a computerized process to count the ballots.