In tiny Fort Rock, voters got no ballots --
then got two. In the Medford area, thousands
of voters started their ballot work with a
prominent local measure missing. And in
Lakeview, voters were told to pick three
council candidates when only two seats are
open.

. . .

Ballots for the Lakeview Town Council
race told voters to pick three of seven
candidates -- but only two seats are open.
Lambert-Shugrue discovered the problem only
after mailing 335 ballots to a precinct
initially missed. The supplemental ballots
repeated the erroneous instruction.

Then there was the Fort Rock factor. Voters
in the tiny desert town in southeastern
Oregon reported they hadn't gotten their
ballots. Lake County mailed 141 ballots --
which landed in mailboxes the same day as
ballots sent in the original mailing.

. . .

In Jackson County, a high-profile levy for a
new juvenile center didn't make it on 21,000
ballots -- about a fifth of the county's total.
The Southern Oregon county quickly printed
and mailed a supplemental ballot to fix the
oversight.

In Linn County, the first candidate to file
for election in a proposed Sweet Home fire and
ambulance district was left off the ballot.
The ballot carried five other names for the
five seats that are up. The missing candidate,
Ervin Reynolds, told county officials not to
bother sending a corrected ballot because he
had filed just to be sure enough people signed
up for the district seats.

And in Baker County, a labeling problem meant
200 voters in one precinct got two ballots.

The Oregonian

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), November 08, 2000