More Noncitizens Discovered on Oregon Voter Rolls

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The governor calls for a pause and an independent audit of automatic voter registration as the number of noncitizens mistakenly registered rises.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Oct. 7 ordered the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to halt transmission of Oregon Motor Voter data to the secretary of state after a review found another 302 noncitizens were improperly registered to vote under the state’s motor voter law.

Under that law, the DMV can automatically register residents to vote when they get a driver’s license or state ID, as long as they provide proof of citizenship.

Last month, the DMV announced that it had discovered 1,259 noncitizens had been registered to vote without providing proof of U.S. citizenship.

The governor ordered the DMV to produce an “after-action report” which then identified an additional 302 noncitizens had also been improperly registered.

The DMV said it has referred the additional 302 registrations to Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade for deactivation, explaining that a technical error had failed to spot them during the initial investigation.

The 1,259 individuals previously identified had already been deactivated.

“Two weeks ago, we believed we had all of the information to project confidence that we understood and had reviewed all records at risk of error,” DMV Administrator Amy Joyce said. “We have since learned this confidence was misplaced based on new information outlined in this announcement and after-action report and for this, we are sorry. DMV will follow the governor’s directed actions and remains committed to continuous learning, corrective action, transparency and accountability.”

Kotek and Griffin-Valade called for an independent, external audit of the motor voter program.

“Any error that undermines our voting system must be taken incredibly seriously and addressed,” Kotek said.

The problem emerged on Sept. 13, when the DMV revealed that it had mistakenly added 300 people to the voter rolls, describing it as a “clerical error.” After an internal audit, that number grew to 1,259.

A Sept. 25 hearing before the Oregon House Committee on Rules discovered that the problem had been identified in early August, but that DMV had failed to notify Kotek or Griffin-Valade until six weeks later.

“I have full confidence that these new errors will not impact the 2024 election,” Griffin-Valade said in an Oct. 7 statement. “The first step in restoring the public’s trust in Oregon Motor Voter is a transparent review by a neutral third party operating under strict government auditing standards.”

Griffin-Valade ordered her office’s elections division to immediately create a new motor voter oversight position and instructed the division to establish a documented process for performing regular data checks with the DMV, as well as updating the rules governing the system, according to her Oct. 7 statement.

“Both the secretary of state’s office and the Department of Motor Vehicles assured voters there were no more issues to be found, but again they were wrong,” Rep. Anna Scharf (R-Amity) said in an Oct. 7 press release sent to The Epoch Times. “They also assured voters nothing would impact the 2024 election. How are voters to be sure they are not wrong about that also?”

By agreeing to an external audit, House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich said in an email to The Epoch Times that “Democrats have conceded that something is systemically wrong with Oregon’s automatic voter registration system.”

Every effort must be made to remove all ineligible voters from the rolls before the November election, he wrote. Helfrich also believes there should be an investigation “into possible violations of the law.”