In August, Read’s office and election officials from all 36 counties sent and tracked 108 pieces of mail on three weekdays, measuring how long it took for the U.S. Postal Service to postmark and deliver them to county elections offices. All the test mail was postmarked in time to count under Oregon’s rules, but delivery times varied substantially, especially in eastern Oregon and rural counties.

One piece of mail sent to the Harney County elections office took 11 days to arrive. Oregon counts ballots that reach election officials within a week after Election Day, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. Read said voters can be confident their ballots will be postmarked and delivered on time if they mail them at least a week before the election.

Election workers are scheduled to begin mailing ballots Wednesday. Voters who cannot mail a completed ballot by Oct. 27 should take it to a ballot drop box or their county elections office, Read said. The state has more than 300 ballot boxes after adding over 20 in several counties.

Read presented the test results at an Oct. 13 news conference in Portland. The timing differences in rural areas, he said, reflect years of Postal Service budget cuts, including the loss of overnight mail pickup at many rural post offices.

Daniel Cortez, president of the Oregon chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, also urged voters to mail ballots early. He said a postmark may be applied when mail is processed by a machine, rather than when it is first dropped off, which can create a delay. Voters can ask a clerk at a Postal Service retail counter to postmark a ballot on the spot, he said.

A statewide ballot-tracking service is expected to launch within days at OregonVotes.gov/track. Previously available only in five counties, the service will let voters in the other 31 counties sign up for text, phone or email updates when their ballot is sent, received and accepted for counting. The expansion is funded by part of a $1.25 million allocation approved by the Legislature’s Joint Emergency Board in September and is available for the 2026 midterm election.

Read also urged voters to stay alert for intimidation or ballot-box tampering. He advised people not to intervene physically, but to call 911, contact their local elections office or use the Secretary of State’s hotline if they see a problem. His warning came amid national disputes over vote-by-mail and recent federal immigration enforcement activity in Oregon, which Read said raised concerns about federal interference near the election.