Benton County voters can now track their ballots by text, email or phone call through BallotTrax, a free service that until this fall was available only in a handful of Oregon counties.
Secretary of State Tobias Read announced the statewide expansion in an Oct. 14 video. Before that, only voters in Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties could use it. Voters in all 36 counties can now sign up ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
Benton County Clerk Darla Rush said local voters have asked for this kind of reassurance.
“Voters in Benton County have let my office know they feel better when they know where their ballots are and have confirmation they’re being counted,” Rush said in a news release. “We contact people only when there is a problem with their ballot. This service provides communication for everyone else.”
To register, voters enter their first and last name, date of birth and ZIP code at oregonvotes.gov/track. All of it must exactly match what appears on their voter registration record.
Subscribers pick text, email or phone call and get notices at three points — when the county mails the ballot, when the elections office receives the completed ballot and when the ballot is accepted for counting.
If a ballot is rejected because of a signature problem, the service sends an alert so the voter can contact Benton County Elections and fix it before it’s too late for the vote to count.
County officials said status updates may lag behind actual processing, and a ballot might briefly show as “under review.” That is not by itself a cause for concern, officials said. Unless the elections office reaches out directly, voters can assume their ballot is moving through the process and any issue has been resolved.
Questions about BallotTrax go to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Elections Division.
A Benton County ballot drop box is located in Philomath in front of the local library at 1050 Applegate St.