Election Day is less than a week away — Nov. 3, to be exact.
In Oregon, you can cast your ballot three ways: mail it from your home, deliver it to an elections office or drop it in an official ballot box by 8 p.m. on election night. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days.
But what actually happens to your ballot after you drop it in the slot? OPB takes you through the vote-by-mail process, step-by-step.
Once cast, the U.S. Postal Service delivers your ballot to your county’s election division office. Ballots can also be collected and transported by authorized personnel or deputized staff.
Workers then verify the signature on your ballot envelope, and if it doesn’t match your voter registration, you’ll get a notification by mail to correct your signature within 21 days.
Staff from different party affiliations prepare the ballots to be counted in a secure room by tabulation machines. Those machines are never connected to the internet, they’re tested before and after counting, and anyone can ask to observe the counting process via their county clerk.
As of Tuesday, voter turnout in Oregon was slightly higher than the 2022 midterms, with about 23% of eligible ballots already received.
Unofficial results will begin posting at 8 p.m. on Nov. 3, and final statewide results will be certified by Dec. 10, 2026.
Vote-by-mail has been standard practice in Oregon for more than two decades. It was first tested in the early 1980s in local elections, and by 1998 the state expanded mail-in voting to primary and general elections.
In 2000, Oregon became the first U.S. state to conduct a presidential election with mail-in voting.