Democratic Nomination in Lake Oswego House District Still in Doubt as Tally Continues

The slow ballot count in Clackamas County has the Democratic candidates for House District 38 in limbo.

Democratic voters in the district are nearly evenly split between Multnomah County voters in Southwest Portland (about 12,700) and Lake Oswego voters in Clackamas County (about 11,700).

In Multnomah County, Neelam Gupta, a Lake Oswego School Board member, leads Daniel Nguyen, a Lake Oswego City Council member, by 325 votes of 7,004 cast. But in Clackamas County, as of the end of the day May 29, Nguyen had received 299 more votes of the 5,243 votes counted.

That means Gupta is currently ahead by 26 votes.

Gupta had an early lead that has narrowed as the Clackamas County tally proceeds (Multnomah County is done counting). On May 20, her lead stood at 328 votes. Then it declined steadily as officials counted additional ballots, reaching a low of 51 votes at the end of May 27. But on May 28, the count in Clackamas County jumped by more than 1,000 votes and Gupta gained ground. Her lead bounced up to 84 votes as of Saturday night.

But after the count on Sunday, Gupta’s lead narrowed again, to 26.

Based on participation in the Multnomah County portion of the district (55% of voters turned out), there may not be many more Democratic votes still to be counted in HD 38. (As of the end of May 29, participation in Clackamas County’s portion of HD 38 stood at 51%.)

The threshold for an automatic recount is two-tenths of 1%—or 26 votes if there end up being Democratic 13,000 ballots cast for the entire district.

Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall has promised to finish counting the ballots (a process delayed by misprinted ballots that must be hand-duplicated) by June 13.