Washington County voters cast 18,755 write-in votes for a conservation district board seat that had no candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot, but not a single vote will count.
The Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District (TSWCD) Zone 3 director seat drew cats, siblings, roommates and random names as write-ins, The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported. The problem: Oregon law required anyone seeking the seat to file a declaration of intent with the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) at least 14 days before the election. Nobody who filed met the eligibility requirements.
One person did try. ODA spokesperson Andrea Cantu-Schomus told The Oregonian that one write-in candidate filed a declaration of intent for Zone 3 but was found ineligible because he lives in Zone 2. Zone directors must be registered voters who reside within the zone they represent, according to the district's elections page.
Because no qualified candidate filed, the county clerk cannot tally the individual write-in votes at all, under ORS 568.530. The 18,755 ballots marked in that race sit uncounted.
The TSWCD board will now appoint someone to fill the seat, state officials told The Oregonian. The term begins Jan. 1, 2027, and runs four years.
Zone 3 covers the northwest corner of Washington County: Forest Grove, portions of Gales Creek and Glenwood, Manning and Buxton. Thomas Dierickx held the seat from 2022 to 2026, according to district records. Every registered voter in the district can vote on every seat, so the 18,755 write-ins came from across the county.
Washington County elections officials declined to release individual write-in names, county spokesperson Philip Bransford told The Oregonian. The office said it would not release a tally because no one had declared a valid write-in candidacy.
Voters had fun with the empty ballot line. The Oregonian reported that a Reddit thread showed some people wrote in their own names, others voted for pets, and at least two said they wrote in their cats. One person voted for a sister-in-law who works at the Washington County elections office.
"We think of those funny ones as 'protest votes' or votes that just do not like the options presented," Paul Manson, a research assistant professor at Portland State University who directs the Elections & Voting Information Center, told The Oregonian.
TSWCD executive director Lacey Townsend declined to speculate on why no one ran for the seat, The Oregonian reported.
Unofficial Washington County results updated Nov. 7 showed 59.42% voter turnout countywide, with 243,537 ballots counted. The county has scheduled updated results each Friday through Nov. 27, with certified final results Nov. 30.
The TSWCD board meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m., and meetings are open to the public.
