Audit: OR Registered More Than 1,500 Potentially Ineligible Voters

Oregon’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently found its “motor voter” system registered even more voters who failed to prove eligibility — totaling more than 1,500 — following previous discoveries that a gap in the system had placed noncitizens on the voter rolls. 

Even Democrat Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, who defended the system in the past, called for an independent audit alongside Democrat Gov. Tina Kotek, according to a press release. The governor announced Monday she would pause the automatic voter registration at the Oregon DMV until completion of a more thorough review.

When Oregonians 16 and older apply for a permit, driver’s license, or ID with documents that prove American citizenship, the DMV sends their information to the secretary of state’s office, which registers them to vote through the “motor voter” system.

But according to the DMV “after action report” released yesterday, this system had three major flaws: a technology glitch, DMV workers recording documents like foreign passports and birth certificates as American, and the system treating residents of the territory American Samoa as citizens since 2016. 

This resulted in the state registering more than 1,500 potential noncitizens to vote. The state is unsure of their citizenship status, but found they did not present the proper documents when registering at the DMV, according to Monday’s release.

“The DMV’s after action report raises serious concerns about this important part of our voter registration system,” Griffin-Valade said in the release. Still, she claimed that “these new errors will not impact the 2024 election.”

The secretary told the Oregon Elections Division to hire someone to fill an oversight position for the state’s “motor voter” system, implement a process for “regular data checks,” and update rules regarding the “motor votor” system. Meanwhile, Kotek ordered an audit from an “independent, external third party vendor,” pausing automatic voter registration until the DMV finishes its review. 

The DMV is set to finish reviewing more than 130,000 susceptible voter registrations on Dec. 1. These records have already been reviewed manually, but another review is seeking those records “without supporting documents” so that registrants can be asked to provide proof of citizenship where necessary. 

Questions from the left-wing Institute for Responsive Government initially prompted the state to review its voter rolls. Griffin-Valade initially discovered more than 300 noncitizens registered to vote last month. The secretary initially said she was “confident” the DMV would deal with the issue and not allow this to happen again.

But a further review turned up even more likely ineligible voters — totaling more than 1,200 at the time. After this discovery, Kotek ordered the DMV to conduct a review. When the department released the results today, it found an additional 300 likely ineligible voters on the rolls. The governor recently told county clerks to inactivate these additional registrations. 

“An immediate, external audit of the Oregon Motor Voter program and a pause to data transmission between the Oregon DMV and SOS are imperative steps to ensuring the program can operate with integrity and accuracy,” Kotek said in a release.

But the DMV is only investigating registrations since Jan. 1, 2021, because it claims the errors could not have happened before then, according to its report. 

Republican Christine Drazan, who lost Oregon’s 2022 governor race by less than 4 percent, said the “agency refuses to audit all records from the start of the program” in 2016. She called for a “complete audit.”

Both Kotek and Griffin-Valade claim the problems will “not impact” November’s election.

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