Baker County primary ballots mail Tuesday ahead of May 19 election

The Baker County Clerk’s Office will mail about 13,000 primary-election ballots Tuesday, putting the county’s May 19 election into voters’ hands and setting the pace for races that will shape local government. In a county where ballots are mailed rather than handed out at polling places, the April 29 mailing is the clearest signal that the campaign is entering its final stretch.

The most immediate deadline is earlier than the mailing itself. Oregon’s voter-registration cutoff for the May 19 primary is April 28, and online registrations must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. that day. Baker County’s election is a closed primary, so registered Republicans and Democrats will receive nominating ballots for the partisan races. Voters who do not select a party will still receive a ballot for the contests they are eligible to vote in, but in the primary that ballot will include only nonpartisan offices and any ballot measures.

The race for county commission chair is already drawing unusual attention. Incumbent Shane Alderson withdrew April 1, but his name will remain on the ballot because it was too late to remove it. Alderson was elected in November 2022 and took office in January 2023. The remaining candidates for chair are Bill Harvey, Whitney Rilee and Kody Justus. The Position 2 race is also crowded, with James Marcrum, Peter Hall, Dan Johnson and Casey Aldrich in the field.

That matters because county races can be decided by relatively small numbers of votes. Baker County’s election archive shows prior primary elections on May 21, 2024, May 17, 2022 and May 19, 2020, underscoring how familiar the county has become with this spring mail-ballot calendar. In the Nov. 4, 2024 election, ballots were mailed to more than 13,000 voters and about 33% had already been returned by election morning, a reminder that ballot return can move quickly here.

Some voters will see their ballots sooner than the general mailing, including military voters and those casting absentee ballots from outside the country. The Oregon Secretary of State says the complete online voters’ guide for the May 19 primary was scheduled to post the week of April 20, and Baker County is included in Voters’ Pamphlet Book 19 with Grant, Harney, Lake and Malheur counties. For Baker County voters, Tuesday’s mailing is the point when the election becomes concrete: check registration now, watch for the ballot next week and make sure it is returned in time to count.