Oregon Public Broadcasting

Three days after Election Day, elections offices around the state say they are almost finished counting ballots.

Statewide turnout stands at 85.5 percent of registered voters, one percent short of breaking the 1960 record. 

Almost every single campaign in the state has been officially decided – the high-profile Senate race and all the ballot measures have been called.

Eric Sample is the spokesman for Multnomah County Elections, which endured a lot of criticism this week for delays in counting.

He says there was a flood in the basement of the Elections office – but the real culprit was that the election was a close one.

Eric Sample: “The flood itself didn’t really affect us. It wasn’t a huge flood, but it was a sewer outflow issue, so it wasn’t pleasant. But we had removed the ballots, but if things aren’t close no one pays any attention to us after election night.

He says Multnomah County has finished counting all its machine-readable ballots.

22,000 votes remain to be tabulated, but they are ballots that need special attention – the machine can’t read them because, for example, they are torn or wet.

Besides Multnomah, the only counties with a significant number of votes yet to be counted are Washington, Clackamas, Lane, and Marion - strong Democratic counties.