Oregon Public Broadcasting

You may have gotten your November ballot already, over the weekend. But if not, state officials say  most Oregonians should have their vote-by-mail envelope this week. Rob Manning has more.

Oregon counties tend to send out ballots a little over two weeks before an election.

Multnomah County and other big counties tend to stagger their  mailings over a few days, but most people should receive ballots by mid- week.

Don Hamilton with the Secretary of State’s office says Oregon saw record numbers of people registering to vote for the first time. He says that might  be putting a strain on county election offices.

Don Hamilton: “With such a short time period between the registration deadline and when the ballots go out in the mail, we get as many of them out as we can, but it wouldn’t unusual for someone who registered right on the deadline, for it to take a couple more days.” 

Hamilton says if voters don’t receive ballots by the end of the week, they should contact their county election office.

Ballots must be received at county offices by Election Day.

There is at least one benefit to voting early: if you’ve gotten unwelcome phone calls from campaigns, you might get those to stop. Campaigns can find out who has voted - and they often remove those people from their call lists.