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Jackson County voter turnout exceeds 60% By Nick Morgan Updated: Nov 08, 2022 10:21 PM A A Ballets are counted at the Jackson County Elections Office on Tuesday. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] More than three-quarters of Jackson County’s Republicans had submitted ballots as of an hour before polls closed Tuesday, with local Democrats trailing them by less than 5%. Altogether, Jackson County Elections had signature-verified 97,180 ballots, a voter turnout of 60.6%, across all parties as of 6:55 p.m. Tuesday, according to numbers provided by Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker. Walker called the preliminary numbers a “very, very healthy gubernatorial election turnout,” particularly among Democrats and Republicans. That 60.6% voter turnout includes 78.2% of Republican ballots, 73.1% of Democrat ballots, 60% of all third-party ballots and 35.5% of nonaffiliated voter ballots received by elections workers. For comparison, Jackson County’s final voter turnout in the 2018 midterm election was 103,852 votes of 153,909 voters, or 67.48%. Jackson County’s last gubernatorial election — in which Central Point candidate Dennis Richardson was on the ballot — had a turnout of 85,349 of 121,643 registered voters or 70.16%. The numbers are preliminary and still growing, Walker said, with election workers still collecting envelopes, verifying signatures and counting ballots leading up to poll close. A complete count is days or weeks away because Oregon law now allows ballots that arrive by mail after the polls close provided they have a Nov. 8 or earlier postmark. Walker expressed dismay at the nonaffiliated voter numbers, which lowered the overall average. “Unfortunately, nonaffiliated voters aren’t choosing to participate,” Walker said. “Just the individual party stuff is huge.” Shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday, the county elections office was quiet with only a couple voters completing ballots at opposite ends of the waiting area roughly two hours before poll close. Because Walker’s staff faced a threat of violence after the 2020 election — namely “Vote Don’t Work” and “Next Time Bullets” painted on the parking lot Nov. 24, 2020 — Walker made physical and cyber security a priority for the midterm election. Walker said the direct threat weighed on her and her staff Tuesday evening. “Even though you don’t live your life thinking about it, during an election you do think about it,” Walker said. “But we refuse to give into that.” In addition to Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputies who stood guard outside the elections office Tuesday evening, Jackson County Parole and Probation — the elections office’s downstars neighbors — were greeters on the first floor. “I call them our election ambassadors,” Walker said. Over the summer, Walker said she tested every component of election equipment over the summer to ensure battery backups were operational in the event of a power outage, and that both primary and backup Internet connections all worked without a hitch. Despite the efforts, not everything went to plan. Walker had to help out with picking up ballots from an official drop box because 11 temp workers scheduled for the job called in sick. “We’re in a really good place right now,” Walker said. “I’d rather be overprepared than underprepared.” “No degree can prepare you how to run an election,” Walker added. Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.