Yamhill County election workers ensure ballot integrity in a streamlined process
The people involved in the election process include four full-time employees and one new worker in the Yamhill County Clerk’s office to about 25 community members, many of them retirees, who are paid minimum wages to pick up ballots and verify signatures.
In addition, political party volunteers observe the counting to make sure it’s being done correctly. [See also: Observers watch election process closely; what to do with your ballot].
The workers are paired up in bipartisan teams to ensure transparency and fairness, Yamhill County Clerk Keri Hinton said.
During the weeks prior to Election Day, they inspect the incoming ballots, making sure to keep them separate from privacy envelopes in order to maintain secrecy. Then they feed ballots into a counting machine, which has been inspected for security and is not connected to the internet, the clerk said.
No results are published until 8 p.m. on Election Day, she said. If not all ballots are counted that evening, workers return the next day to continue counting.
Workers said they are happy to help with elections because they are vital to our democracy. They want everyone to vote — it’s a right and a duty as a citizen, they said.
Dorothy Losli, for instance, said she encourages everyone to vote. “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” said Losli, who has been helping with elections since 1978 — 46 years.
She started helping with elections in Yamhill in 1978, the year after she moved to town. “It looked interesting, and I wanted to get to know people,” she recalled.
She enjoyed greeting people who came to the polling place. “I wish we still had polling places. You get to see peoples’ faces and you know who’s voting,” she said.
When mail-in balloting started, she moved to helping with elections at the clerk’s office in McMinnville. She enjoys working with the people there, too.
She opens envelopes and places ballots in stacks to get them ready for processing. She always works with a partner— currently, Linda Dollinger — and has mentored “quite a few” new workers over the years.
“Everybody is really, really nice,” she said. “It’s important to have someone you can trust.”
Losli recalled asking then-clerk Charles Stern how he made sure everything was done honestly. “You have good people,” he told her.
She can confirm that her coworkers today fall into that category, as does the current clerk, Keri Hinton.
“You won’t find better,” she said. “I’m very confident in our county.”
It’s important that they follow every step of the process, Losli said, not only to make the counting process accurate, but to assure the public that it’s done right.
Once, she recalled, she counted a box of 400 ballots (much larger than is standard today) and came up one short. The process stopped for an hour while she recounted and located the missing ballot, which had been mislaid by accident.
It took time and effort, she said, but it was worth it. “You just have to do it. You have to get it right,” she said. “You have to be on the up-and-up for the whole county.”
Here are some of the other local people who work alongside Losli to make sure Yamhill County elections go smoothly:
Tami Fuller worked for the Yamhill County Clerk’s Office for 31 years before retiring in 2019. But she enjoys elections so much — and considers them so important – that she is back at work as an “on-call election board worker.”
She does whatever tasks need doing during the election season. She helps proofread the voters’ pamphlet and the ballots, updates forms, helps with the intake of ballots and helps make sure the newly arrived ballots are stacked facing in the same direction, which makes it easier to check the signatures.
Envelopes that are questioned — ones with signatures that don’t appear to match those on file — are rechecked by people, then rechecked again if necessary. If there seems to be no match, Fuller said, the clerk’s office contacts the voter, who can come in and verify the signature.
If a signature is never verified, the vote isn’t counted.
Sometimes it’s simply a matter of a voter’s signature changing over the years since registration was completed. Fuller said people can come to the clerk’s office and fill out a new registration card if they think their signature has changed.
Security is on everyone’s mind, Fuller said. Police will have a presence around the clerk’s office on Election Day, and other measures are in place to protect the ballot process and election workers.
“I can confidently say this is done with security and accuracy,” Fuller said.
Fuller picks up ballots from the post office and from the box in the lobby of the clerk’s office. Other crew members pick up drop boxes in other McMinnville locations and cities around the county. At 8 p.m. on election night, there will be a final pickup from all the boxes.
“I like the work because it’s ever-changing,” Fuller said. “Every election is different.”
She enjoys predicting what the turnout will be each time. “It’s frustrating,” she said, “when only a small percentage of voters cast ballots.
“I hope for a high turnout,” she said, “especially in a presidential election. It’s important. It affects their future. People should vote.
“Your vote does count,” she said. “You have a right to have a say in what goes on in our country.”
She would like them to vote as early as possible, too. “Take your time (to understand the issues), but get your ballot in early so we’re not bombarded.”
The more ballots that come in close to the time the polls close, the more there are to open and count that night. “I’ve had some VERY late nights,” she said.
However, election nights don’t run as late these days, Fuller said, because Yamhill County Clerk Keri Hinton tries to end the night by about 10 p.m. Workers come back in the morning refreshed to restart their count.
Most of them need rest by late on Election Day, since they open the office at 7 a.m. and work hard all day, she said.
Fuller started her job with the clerk’s office in 1978. She had worked at Carlton City Hall during high school, taking shifts at the Carlton Pool in the summer. After graduating, she figured she’d work for the clerk’s office that summer before heading to college.
Instead, she took a full-time job there when Clerk Wanda Katt offered it. She didn’t know then that she would be there more than four decades later and would work for four clerks over the years – Katt, Charles Stern, Brian Van Bergen and Keri Hinton.
When she began, voting was done at official polling places; voters had to cast their ballots in person between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on election day. Oregon switched to mail-in ballots in the mid-1990s.
The change gives voters a longer period in which to return their ballots and lets them vote at home, rather than traveling to a polling place. It has increased turnout, Fuller said.
After retiring in 2019, she moved to Texas. But after she lost her husband she returned to Oregon. One of her sons died more recently, and she has a son living in Oregon and grandchildren in Oregon and Texas.
Working in the clerk’s office has made her more interested in elections over the years. But it hasn’t changed her viewpoint. “You have to be very neutral and open-minded,” she said.
“People come in and ask questions, and we have to treat them all with respect,” she said.
When processing ballots, election workers always work in pairs, and never with someone of the same party affiliation. They don’t talk about politics, Fuller said.
“That’s better for the whole office,” she said.
Lee Niederer became familiar with how elections work when she worked in finance with school districts, first McMinnville, then Yamhill Carlton.
In fact, when she started in the early 1970s, districts and cities organized their own elections, she said; if a school district needed a construction bond, for instance, it went to voters directly. Niederer recalled working with Yamhill County Clerk Helen Green to organize elections for the school district.
By the late 1970s, the clerk’s office oversaw all elections, as it does now. But Niederer was still interested in the election process. And when she retired and had more time, she went to the clerk’s office to see how she could help.
Over her 25 years as an election worker, she has done a variety of tasks, including checking signatures, rounding up ballots, opening envelopes and making sure ballots are legible for the machines, etc.
“We used to stay all night long,” she recalled. “Now, with Keri (Hinton, the clerk) we don’t work as late; we come back the next morning. It’s a whole different world.”
She enjoys the process and the camaraderie amongst the workers. She has known many of her fellow workers for many years now.
And Niederer said she is impressed each year by the changes and improvements in security and counting methods.
“I always felt it was secure, but it’s improved with every clerk,” she said. “Brian (Van Bergen, who was clerk until 2022) made a machine to make sure the envelopes were safe. Keri is really up on the law – I’m totally impressed.”
Niederer always hopes for a high turnout. “It’s so vital that everybody votes,” she said. “It’s sad when only half do.
“People ought to feel an obligation. They should read and find out about the issues,” she said. “You have an obligation to be a citizen.”
Ken and Linda Dollinger started helping with elections in the spring of 2008. “This is our fifth presidential election,” Ken said proudly.
Originally from Texas, the couple moved to McMinnville in the 1990s. She was director of Kids on the Block, the after school program, for several years. He worked for Freelin Wade and operated a book shop downtown.
Retired, they thought it would be enjoyable to help with elections — and would give them a chance to do their part.
Ken is a “ballot ranger,” who drives his “ballot mobile” — his own car — around the county emptying official ballot boxes and bringing the contents to the clerk’s office.
He works six days a week during late October and early November — even when his car’s heater went out during a cold snap, and even when it’s pouring rain. “I’m going on strike for better weather conditions,” joked the dedicated election worker, who even has a mock badge — a Texas star — and a hat to wear on the job.
He works with a partner from a different political party in order to keep the process accurate.
“We don’t even look at the ballots,” he said. “All the ballots look alike anyway. After you handle 70,000 of them, you’d never even take the time to look.”
He’s hoping they do handle that many ballots, he said, because the volume would represent a good turnout. The more people vote, the better, he said.
“Voting is a responsibility,” said Ken, who has voted in every election since he became old enough to do so.
Linda had to wait a little longer to start voting than he did; in 1960s Texas, women couldn’t vote as soon as men.
“When we married (1966), Linda couldn’t even have her own bank account,” Ken recalled. “I was away in the Navy when she needed to buy a car, and her dad and my dad had to co-sign.”
He and his wife became election workers at the suggestion of their friends Don and Evelyn Mero. They went through training — and continue to do so prior to each election — and were paired with experienced election workers as they learned the job.
Linda, for instance, was mentored by Dorothy Losli, who has been an election worker for 46 years.
During each election, Linda helps with receiving ballots and opening envelopes. This year, she is learning to use the computer to verify signatures on the secrecy envelopes.
A computer compares voters’ signatures on the envelope to the way they signed their ballot registration cards.
In some cases, voters have filled out several cards over the years as they’ve moved or their handwriting has changed with age.
“We have access to every voter’s card you’ve ever filled out,” she said.
After the computer scans the ballots, Linda or another human looks at the signatures, too. “Sometimes we’re not comfortable with one, so we set it aside for another person to look at it,” she said.
Sometimes, Ken noted, husbands and wives get their ballots mixed up, with each signing the other’s ballot. Once, Linda recalled, one member of the family signed the ballots for everyone in the household; that’s not allowed.
Linda also checks each ballot to make sure there are no odd marks that will cause the tallying machine to reject it. She also counts the number of ballots in each batch before they are delivered to the tabulation area.
“Ballots are counted and recounted, at every step,” Ken said. “If there’s one discrepancy, everything stops” until the numbers are reconciled.
During the time they have been helping with elections, the Dollingers said, they’ve had the pleasure of working with “two superb country clerks,” Brian Van Bergen and Keri Hinton, the current clerk.
“Brian made massive improvements in the process, and Keri is continuing to make elections streamlined and foolproof,” Ken said. “She’s keyed to efficiency and accuracy, and has improved security.”
He and his wife are confident that Yamhill County elections are fair and accurate.
“Our elections are absolutely on the up and up,” Linda said. “I can’t imagine how people could cheat.”
With all the checks and double-checks involved, Ken said, the process is like “wearing a belt with suspenders” – sure to work properly.
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