About Us

Multnomah County Elections conducts all local, city, county, state and federal elections for the citizens of Multnomah County. Local elections include boards of directors for schools and special districts as well as local measures. City elections include those for city offices as well as annexations and other city issues. County elections are for county officers and county measures. State elections include Oregon House and Senate races as well as state-wide offices and state measures. Federal elections include Congressional, US Senate and Presidential races.

Conducting elections involves: registering voters; maintaining the voter data base; maintaining address and district data; checking signatures on city, local and state candidate/initiative petitions; accepting candidate/measure filings; producing voters' pamphlets; issuing and mailing ballots; establishing drop site locations; accepting and processing returned ballots; counting ballots; and releasing results. The office also processes passport applications.

There are four regularly scheduled elections each year in Oregon: the 2nd Tuesday in March; the 3rd Tuesday in May; the 3rd Tuesday in September; and the 1st Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Multnomah County Elections has 12 employees who work at the Elections Office. For major elections, Multnomah County employees as many as 250 temporary election workers. Each election cycle takes anywhere from three months to eight months from beginning to end. All elections in Oregon are held by mail. There are currently about 415,000 registered voters in Multnomah County. Multnomah County uses an optical scan system to count ballots.

Multnomah County is located in the Northwest corner of Oregon, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. Multnomah County is Oregon's smallest and most populous county with over 710,000 residents. Multnomah County is governed by a Board of four elected Commissioners and one Chair. More than 4,500 Multnomah County employees provide citizens a wide range of health and human services, public safety services and other government services. The largest city in Multnomah County is Portland which is where the Elections Office is located.

Information Links

• Oregon Blue Book - Multnomah County
• U.S. Census Bureau Quickfacts - Multnomah County
• Multnomah County Website
• CascadeLink

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