Election night results and open thread

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

It's election night in Oregon, with dozens of bond measures and local candidates up for grabs. We'll be updating here with the highlights.

8:40 p.m.: It's still not linked from the Multnomah County Elections home page, but the first round of results are here. These initial results are for all ballots received through Monday, with 23% turnout. According to elections officials, turnout will be at least 32, going higher as remote ballot boxes come in.

8:48 p.m.: Initial results suggest a resounding 63-37 defeat for the $5 vehicle registration fee in Clackamas County that would help pay a small portion of the Sellwood Bridge project.

8:57 p.m.: For Portland schools, it looks like incumbents Ruth Adkins and Bobbie Regan are winning re-election - and Matt Morton is winning handily with 52% in a three-way race.

8:59 p.m.: Updated results should be imminent, but the first round had the Portland school bond losing 53 to 47, while the levy was passing 54 to 46.

9:04 p.m. The second round of election results are now up from Multnomah County at 23% turnout counted. No dramatic shifts yet. PPS school bond supporters are surely hoping for an election-day surge. We'll be waiting a while to learn if that happened.

Here's a twitter feed of election night results:



Use this space to discuss anything related to today's election.

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    Amazing that people would rather die in a bridge collapse then pay $5.

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      If they die in a bridge collapse then they probably wouldn't be able to pay $5.

      I'm surprised that bridge hasn't hit the river already. I don't think I would have felt guilty when lived in Multnomah county and heard that thing collapsed because it seemed inevitable. I would probably have saved my outrage for the administrations that seemed to be able to get all kinds of shiny new things done, but ignored a crumbling bridge. While I lived in Multnomah county, I watched every other bridge getting worked over, but the Sellwood was always ignored. To blame Clackamas county residents for a bridge in Multnomah county that has been failing for years and years seems a bit misguided. I live closer to Marion county and use their bridges more frequently than Multnomah's, maybe I should be giving Marion my $5. Just my $.02.

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    Hope Shemia Fagan wins for Douglas School Board. :)

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    Its not just about $5, its all the other "bonds" and "levies" that are being dumped on us. I thought Measures 66 & 67 were supposed to take care of this? That's what they told us, isn't it?

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    Third round of election results from Multnomah County are now up. Things seem to be improving for the Portland school bond.

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    The midnight results from Clackamas are in (still only 3/4 of total reported votes cast) and the good news is, 37% of my fellow Clackamas County residents are not stupid and crazy.

    I think it's a factor of closeness to the bridge (and the daily Tacoma-Johnson Creek traffic jams) and the known voting pattern of 50% adherence to the GOP line.

    Sad about the bridge, but as a service district resident I'm even more interested in the under-reported Clackamas River Water District. I've paid attention to the charges and counter-charges over the years, yet never felt that I had any significant independent knowledge to justify an opinion.

    This year I tried to investigate, and came to the conclusion, after an effort cut pretty short by family life, that the evidence (while still very incomplete) merited a vote in favor of the Commissioner who is on the outs with and suing her whole board (Holloway), and against the Commissioner who (if I remember correctly) ran as reformer the last time but has since gone establishment (Lewis- Wolfram). Apparently the rest of the district agreed with me.

    I could go on and on about the problems of this Water District and what citizens can do next, it's getting late and I need to move yet there's much to discuss if anyone's interested over the next few days.

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    Round six election results from Multnomah County now up. Things are trending very nicely for the school bond.

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    It's sad that the registration fee for the Sellwood Bridge failed, but I am not surprised. Tax and fee increases are hard to pass. Doing it in Clackamas County is harder still. Doing it in a way that riles up the hornet's nest of tea party types is asking for trouble. Was there no way to target the registration fee funds to uses within the county, while finding funds for Sellwood Bridge replacement from existing funds? That would have been much less provocative.

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    Wow. As of the 2:00 pm update, less than a thousand votes between the yes and no votes on the bond measure (with the no just eeking out a lead).

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    "At 10 p.m. last night, there were 39,806 yes and 44,019 no." Are the numbers in this statement flipped or is there a typo? More "no's" than "yeses" can't be right. Thanks

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      Not sure what you mean. All last night the No votes where ahead of the yes votes on the bond measure, but with each update as ballots that arrived on election night were being tabulated, the margin shrank. The latest update at 2 this afternoon has the Nos leading by just under 1,000 votes.

      Not sure where your "statement" is form, nor why you think the numbers in it were flipped.

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    Well, it looks like we lost a couple of today's updates in the post above. (We were doing some technical upgrades, which is probably the culprit.)

    In any case, it now appears that the Portland school bond was very narrowly defeated. Despite a positive trend all day long, it fell short.

    The O's Betsy Hammond reports the almost-final numbers as:

    YES 58,730 49.5%
    NO 59,814 50.5%

    The Oregonian's totals include votes cast in the small portions of Portland Public Schools that lie in Washington and Clackamas counties along with the Multnomah totals.

    There are now about 1,000 potential votes uncounted, according to Multnomah elections director Tim Scott -- too few votes to change the outcome of the bond vote. And the margin, while narrow, is far larger than the two-tenths of 1 percent difference that triggers an automatic recount.

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      Failing by just over 1000 votes. I'd say the message for the Portland School District is "try again" -- preferably when there isn't a second large money measure on the ballot. Do the City of Portland or Multnomah County plan to put anything on the ballot in November?

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