Trisha Myers, elections program manager, helps conducts a public test and certification of the election system at the Jackson County Clerk's Office in Medford last week. With one day before the May 21 primary election, 22% of local ballots had been returned according to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office.

One day before polls close in the primary election, voter participation in Jackson County is at 22% — slightly ahead of the statewide average, but down significantly from the turnout in the 2022 primary.

Jackson County had received 35,461 ballots out of a pool of 161,502 eligible voters, according to an Unofficial Ballot Returns Comparison report issued by the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office generated at 1:53 p.m. Monday.  

Those ballots included 7,458 collected over the weekend in Jackson County, according to the report. 

As of Monday afternoon, 31.3% of Jackson County’s 42,612 registered Democrats, 30.9% of the county’s 48,662 registered Republicans and 8.28% of the county’s 58,555 nonaffiliated voters had returned their ballots.  

The numbers also show that 13.4% of local Constitution party, 21% of Independent party, 14.4% Libertarian party, 9.7% of No Labels party, 17.3% of Pacific Green party, 13.5% of Progressive party and 6% of Working Families party members had returned ballots in Jackson County.

Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker said in an email shortly after 4:30 p.m. Monday that, of the ballots received, 21.5% have been signature verified and accepted.

Statewide, 19.6% of Oregon’s 3,015,661 eligible voters — including 28.7% of registered Republicans and 26.2% of registered Democrats — had returned a ballot. 

Jackson County’s 35,461 returned ballots is down 31.4% from the 51,721 ballots returned in the 2022 primary election, according to the report.

Ballots must have a postmark of May 21 or earlier, or be received in an official ballot box by 8 p.m. Tuesday. 

Official ballot drop-off locations are outside the elections office at 1101 W. Main St. in Medford, the Medford library at 205 S. Central Ave., the Ashland library at 410 Siskiyou Blvd., the Central Point library at 116 S. Third St., the Phoenix library at 510 W. First St., the Eagle Point library at 239 W. Main St. and the Rogue River library at 412 E. Main St.

The Jackson County Elections Office will be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on election day. The elections office can be reached at 541-774-6148 or elections@jacksoncountyor.gov.