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Absentee ballots will delay results By PETER WONG Some of the earliest ballots submitted for today's general election will be among the last to be counted. Because of a record number of absentee ballots issued, elections workers are bracing not only for a long day of work at the polling places but a long week of work in the Jackson County Courthouse Annex in Medford. The count of thousands of absentee ballots will start Wednesday, after polling-place ballots are tallied. County Clerk Kathy Beckett said Monday that no absentee ballot can be counted until the return of poll books, which carry the signatures of voters who cast ballots at polling places. That step ensures that an absentee voter cannot cast two ballots in the same election. If a voter has an absentee ballot but then casts a ballot at the polling place, the absentee ballot is thrown out. Once the names of voters who cast absentee ballots are checked against the poll books, workers can check voter signatures with those on file and then process the punch-card ballots for machine tabulation. "We anticipate that it will take the full three days for us to count absentee ballots," Beckett said. State law requires elections officials to complete counts of absentee ballots by midnight Friday. Two years ago, when elections officials handled 24,257 absentee ballots returned, it took them until early Friday evening to complete the count. Beckett said she plans to field more ballot-processing teams this time. As of early Monday afternoon, 31,721 absentee ballots had been issued in Jackson County _ surpassing the 1996 record of 27,137 absentees issued _ and 11,456 (36.1 percent) had been returned. The county has 106,385 registered voters. Absentee ballots must be in the hands of elections officials by 8 tonight if they are to count in the election. Postmarks do not count. Voters are reminded to sign their names where indicated on the backs of the outer envelopes. Dropoff sites are: The Elections Division, Room 216-A of the Courthouse Annex, 10 S. Oakdale Ave., Medford. The ground-floor payment window of the annex. Library branches in Ashland, Central Point, Eagle Point, Jacksonville, Phoenix, Rogue River, Shady Cove and Talent. The other seven libraries are not dropoff sites and ballots should not be left there. Any polling place, even if it's not the voter's normal polling place. Call the division at 776-7181. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA