School, fire board races: Vote by 8 p.m. to be counted

The Washington County Elections Division is urging those who wish to vote in Tuesday’s special district election to vote by 8 p.m.

“With an expected low turnout, just a handful of votes can decide who leads” special districts like school and fire districts, Washington County said in a press release.
En español.

For a vote to be counted, a signed ballot must be dropped in one of the 21 official drop sites throughout the county by 8 p.m., or postmarked by 8 p.m.

A stamp is not needed to mail a ballot. Many USPS locations close before 8 p.m., and mail drop sites are checked the final time for the day before 8 p.m., which means it’s a safer bet to drop a ballot off at an official ballot drop site Tuesday evening.

Locally, a drop site is located in Banks at the Banks Public Library on the Market Street driveway.

Postmarked ballots received after May 27 will not be counted, the Washington County Elections Division said.

As of Monday, the Washington County Elections Division had received over 60,000 ballots, a turnout of a little more than 15%.

There were 399,071 registered voters in the county as of Tuesday.

For more information on voting, visit the Washington County Elections Division website.

Initial results for races across the state will be published online at results.oregonvotes.gov.

---

What to expect from the Banks Post’s election coverage

Here’s how the Banks Post covers local elections.

The Banks Post does not make race calls per se. We are not the Associated Press. Instead, we note the most up-to-date vote tally, and indicate where the vote lies, and the likely outcome.

For example, if Bob McBoberson held 65% of the vote at 8 p.m., you might see a headline like “McBoberson takes commanding lead in initial election results”
and the text will likely say something like “Unless McBoberson’s opponent sees a surge in support in subsequent vote counts, McBoberson is on track to win his seat.”
Apologies to any Banks residents named Bob McBoberson

A few minutes after 8 p.m., we’ll have three stories up on our website.

Banks Fire District

We will note the results of the Banks Fire District race, which is the simplest race of the night: Each of the two positions on the ballot drew just one candidate, so, barring an unprecedented situation like a stealth write-in campaign, each candidate will win their race.

Incumbents John Wren and Kevin Henning will win their races. We’ll note the initial vote tally and move on. That story will be updated Wednesday morning with the latest vote count.

Banks School Board

We’ll then move on to three positions on the Banks School Board, two of which have an incumbent running unopposed for their seat, while position 1 features a race between incumbent Leslee Sipp and challenger Jodi Hailey.

What’s next

Additional results will be published at 10 p.m., at which time we’ll update each story.

If there are any close races, we will wait for the midnight update and make a final update for the night. Wednesday morning, we’ll publish another set of stories with the most current results.

Because Oregon allows ballots postmarked by May 20 to be counted if they are received by May 27, the outcome of closes races may not be known right away.

We’ll continue to follow election results until an outcome is certain. Vote counts are considered “unofficial” until certified on June 16.

As always, all election result stories are completely free.

---

Recent stories