PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Chair Dave Brown and Vice Chair Brian Shannon appear to have beat Newberg’s recall efforts as the initial results are in from Yamhill County.
The majority has voted not to recall Brown at nearly 52%. Shannon rang in similar votes with a little more than 52% voting not to recall him. Votes will continue to roll in for about another week or so making these unofficial results.
Newberg School Board Recall Election Results
Yamhill County Clerk Brian Van Bergen told KOIN 6 News they go through each step of the voted ballots manually — checking each signature on the envelope, opening the outer envelope, pulling out the ballot, and so forth — so the process is time-consuming.
It will take “7 days for the post office to get their stuff to us and then 14 days to cure any signature issues after that,” said Van Bergen. “And then we have to wait for those results to come from the other two counties to add up. So short story long, at least 22 days from today before we really know” the final vote count.
Roughly 25,000 people were eligible to vote in the recall election.
After a law change on the first of this year — any ballot postmarked by election day which was Tuesday will be counted. This means these vote counts are not final as votes continue to be tallied.
Both board members have been at the center of a district-wide controversy over political symbols in schools.
The school board debated banning Pride and Black Lives Matter flags for months. But the recall effort began shortly after the District Superintendent Dr. Joe Morelock was fired without cause in November.
Both Brown and Shannon voted with the majority to terminate Morelock in a 4-3 vote.