Brent Wojahn / The Oregonian / 2011

Voter turnout in Oregon’s Tuesday special election is on pace to be among the lowest the state has experienced in a statewide vote-by-mail special election.

There’s just one issue on the ballot: Measure 101, which would raise $210 million to $320 million in taxes on large hospitals and most health insurance plans by 2019.

As of Friday morning, just 26 percent of voters had returned ballots, according to reports from county elections officials collected by the Secretary of State’s office. In three statewide special elections held since 2000, between 40 percent and 47 percent of voters got their ballots to their county elections office by the Friday morning prior to the election.

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Hillary Borrud

This month’s low voter turnout thus far has come in spite of supporters, primarily the health care industry, pouring $3.6 million into the campaign to pass the plan. Opponents reported raising roughly $126,000, with most of the money coming from the personal and campaign coffers of one of the Republican lawmakers behind the campaign.

Elections workers can expect voters will drop off a flood of ballots in person over the next four days, a trend that has accelerated in recent years. For example in 2010, when Oregonians approved controversial tax increases on corporations and high-income individuals, more than half the ballots cast came in during the final four days.

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Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The deadline to return ballots in person is 8 p.m. Tuesday. It’s now too late to mail them.

Phil Keisling, a former secretary of state who now directs Portland State University’s Center for Public Service, said Oregon’s trend of last-minute voting has only increased in recent years and he expects turnout in this election will reach 45 to 50 percent as a result.

“Beginning about six to eight years ago, the majority of votes cast are actually cast … in person using a piece of mail,” Keisling said. “Although that sounds like a ridiculously, absurdly small distinction, I’d argue it’s an important one. The patterns of return have migrated closer and closer to election day.”

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Anna Marum/Staff

Oregon’s record for the lowest turnout in a statewide vote-by-mail special election appears to be 38 percent, which occurred in November 1999 when voters faced seven crime-related measures referred by the Legislature. A close second was the first statewide special election conducted by mail in 1993. The issue that drew 39 percent of registered voters to participate in that election was even less riveting: a measure on urban renewal bonds, requested by the Legislature.

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Oregonian file photo

In Tuesday’s special election, turnout as of Friday was marginally higher among Republicans compared with Democrats: 33 percent, compared with 32.2 percent. But there are far more registered Democrats than Republicans in Oregon -- with Democrats accounting for 36 percent of the state’s registered voters and Republicans 26 percent. So Democrats are on track to turn in significantly more ballots than Republicans. Democrats tend to favor Measure 101 while Republicans tend to oppose it.

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Hillary Borrud

The largest swath of Oregon voters are unaffiliated or members of small parties, but those voters are far less likely than Democrats or Republicans to cast ballots. So far, just 17 percent of those voters have returned ballots.

-- Hillary Borrud

@hborrud