Twenty-eight days before the election, the ballots are printed and shipped to Signature Graphics in Portland where the insertion in envelopes and mailing occurs. Eighteen days before the election, ballots are inserted in envelopes over the course of two days, supervised by election staff, using special machines and mailed from Portland Post office to voters. Signatures are verified on each ballot against the signature on the voter registration card. They are then sorted by precinct and stored in a secure location until the Thursday before election day. On the Thursday before election day, ballots are opened by election boards and inspected.
Boards make sure that ballots are acceptable and can be read by the vote counting machine.
On election day, ballots are counted by the vote counting machine which uses an optical scanner to read the ballots. They are tallied by machine and the first results are released at 8 p.m. Election night.