Officials in Oregon are looking into whether some ballots were left in Corvallis mailboxes on this May’s Election Day.
In Oregon, a ballot must be postmarked by Election Day or it won’t be counted. That means that a post office has to process it.
However, the local mail carrier union told the Corvallis Gazette-Times this month that the post office told workers to focus on delivering packages on May 19, rather than picking up mail.
Benton County spokesperson Anne Thwaits said the county has now met with state and federal officials over the concerns.
She said it’s unclear how many ballots were affected. But she said just 388 ballots were postmarked late across the whole county.
“This incident, if there were ballots not picked up, did not affect the outcome of any of the races or the measures that were on the ballot,” said Thwaits. “None of them had a margin that was that small.”
Thwaits said the county is now waiting for the United States Postal Service to release a detailed statement sharing what it knows so far and what it shared at a recent meeting.
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