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CANNON BEACH, Ore. — A divisive election in the quaint Oregon Coast town
of Cannon Beach just brought the community a renewed wave of upheaval,
after county election officials revealed that the unofficial results of
two competing ballot measures had been flipped in all previous
reporting.

When the dust settled after the May 2025 special election, it looked as
if a push to require public votes on all expensive city projects had
narrowly won. Instead, the Clatsop County Elections office said
Wednesday, it was the status quo which was winning all along.

The former, Measure 04-235, was the result of a citizen petition and
would require an election to approve any city project expected to cost
over $6.5 million funded by non-emergency finances. This would
essentially take that decision-making power away from the elected city
council — which supporters argue is the point. They think that the
public should have a say in all decisions of that scale.

In response, the city council created an opposing initiative, Measure
04-236, which would clarify the city charter and essentially enshrine
the status quo — the elected five-member city council would have the
power to approve spending, keeping them eligible for vital grants that generally require a more decisive process.

At the end of May, the unofficial results showed the races for both
measures too close to call. However, yes votes had a narrow lead on
4-235 and no votes on 4-236. And with an electorate the size of a small
city, it was unlikely that a recount would shift things all that much.

But this week, something happened. The Oregon Secretary of State's
office added a message to the top of the results page for Clatsop
County:

"Results for City of Cannon Beach Measure 04-235 and Measure 04-236 were mistakenly reversed. The error is a result of a State administrative
user hand-entering two identifying numbers incorrectly. The measure
numbers have been corrected, and an audit of all election results
concluded."

Now, following the reversal and the audit, Measure 4-235 (for a public
vote) failed by just nine votes, while Measure 4-236 (for the status
quo) passed by a 13-vote margin. The error and resulting correction
flipped the election's apparent outcome on its head.

Clatsop County Elections confirmed the issue in a statement issued
Wednesday, explaining that the results on the Oregon Secretary of
State's website were incorrectly labeled online, as Measure 04-235 was
shown as 04-236 and vice versa. Vote counts were not affected, the
agency stressed.

No other unofficial election results were impacted with similar errors,
and the website has corrected the listings, said Clatsop County
Elections. The issue didn't stem from Clatsop County's own results,
which were reported correctly.

“The Secretary of State’s office takes full responsibility for the error that caused the results for two ballot measures in Cannon Beach to be
flipped in the unofficial election night reporting website," Deputy
Oregon Secretary of State Michael Kaplan said in a statement.

"We conducted a full review of the unofficial results for every other
race in the state and confirmed this was an isolated incident," Kaplan continued. "We are adding additional controls to prevent errors like
this from happening again because we know Oregonians are counting on us
to get this right."

Clatsop County voters with questions may contact the county clerk at 503-325-8511 or visit the county's election website.

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/cannon-beach-ballot-meas ure-election-results-reversed-error-mix-up/283-a019cf43-c4bd-4ec7-b8d9-f3 e1d7322e8d

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