May 11, 2022 4:00 a.m.

Over fourteen percent of registered voters have cast their ballot in the May Primary Election, as of late Tuesday.

Douglas County Clerk Daniel Loomis said the 12,707 ballots that have been received, are just over two percent ahead of the participation rate for the same point in the 2020 primary.

Loomis said Tuesday marked the point at which election boards began extracting the voted ballots from their return envelopes, and those ballots began to be electronically scanned and tallied. The initial set of Unofficial Preliminary Results, of those tallied ballots, will not be read, and not available, until 8:00 p.m. on election night, Tuesday May 17th.

A list of drop box sites where ballots can be returned is at: https://douglascounty-oregon.us/179/Official-Drop-Site-Locations