ENTERPRISE — Ballots for the Nov. 5 election are in the mail, Wallowa County Clerk Sandy Lathrop said Wednesday, Oct. 16, and the number of registered voters in the county is about the same as in recent elections.

She said 6,388 ballots were sent to the post office for the Nov. 5 election.

“That’s right in the ballpark,” she said in comparing the registrations to recent elections.

Lathrop said the registration numbers surged in recent years when the COVID-19 pandemic led people to take up at least a semipermanent residence in Wallowa County, but numbers have reverted more to normal.

Voting this year is similar to recent elections, but a measure on the statewide ballot could affect future elections.

Measure 117 calls for ranked choice voting, in which voters, instead of just choosing one candidate in a race, can choose to rank all the candidates in order of preference. If one candidate gets 50% plus one of the first-place votes, that candidate is elected. 

If no candidate wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and the second-place votes for that candidate are allocated among the remaining candidates. The process continues until one of the candidates wins a majority.

Lathrop, who has been among the county clerks opposing Measure 117, listed several reasons for her opposition. She said the transition to ranked choice voting would involve substantial added costs, which counties will be hard-pressed to handle. The clerks also have argued that, since ranked choice voting won’t apply to all contests on the ballot, it could lead to confusion among voters and help fuel unfounded conspiracy theories regarding voting.

Ranked choice voting proponents argue that the system forces candidates to appeal to a broader range of voters and ensures that the winner of elections is elected with a majority. 

On another voting-related matter, Lathrop said Wallowa County voting rolls have not included any of the noncitizens who were mistakenly registered to vote through the motor-voter program administered by the state Motor Vehicles Services Division. 

The Oregon Capital Chronicle has reported that 1,561 people were registered to vote in Oregon despite not providing proof of citizenship when they obtained driver’s licenses. At least 10 of those individuals voted, though election officials since have determined that at least five of those 10 were citizens when they voted.

State officials said none of those voted in elections in which their votes would have changed the outcome of any race.

And Lathrop said none of the 1,561 individuals was mistakenly registered to vote in Wallowa County.

“Wallowa County has not had any,” she said. “We haven’t had any.”