From Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services: Three different Oregon photo IDs
Oregon DMV
The state has unearthed hundreds more people than previously known who were improperly registered to vote under Oregon’s motor voter law.
The latest tally includes 302 people identified on Monday, according to an “after-action” report ordered by Gov. Tina Kotek. The latest numbers add to the 1,259 people who officials with the state’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services office and Secretary of State had earlier revealed were registered in error.
Kotek has called on the DMV to pause the process of automatically registering drivers to vote through the state’s motor voter law.
Monday’s release from the DMV’s office notes 123 new people were mistakenly added through previously identified clerical errors. But the state discovered a new error: Another 178 people from the U.S. territories of American Samoa and Swains Island have been wrongly classified as U.S. citizens.
The secretary of state’s office said officials are still reviewing whether any of the individuals wrongly added have actually voted.
“These records contained evidence of clerical errors regarding citizenship status but that does not necessarily mean they belong to noncitizens,” the report reads. “For example, we know that of the 10 individuals identified in an earlier review who had a voting history, at least five were in fact citizens.”
In response to the news, both Kotek and Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade signaled they will act with new urgency to look into how far the problems in automatic voter registrations extend.
“Any error that undermines our voting system must be taken incredibly seriously and addressed,” Kotek said in a statement.
The report dropped Monday added depth to a problem first revealed on Sept. 13, when the state said that more than 300 people had been registered in error. The DMV chalked up the issue to a “clerical error,” saying that clerks had mistakenly identified people as U.S. citizens when they obtained a driver’s license, even though they had not furnished proof.
Under Oregon’s pioneering motor voter law, the DMV registers Oregon residents to vote when they get a driver’s license or state ID as long as they provide proof of citizenship like a U.S. passport or birth certificate.
The extent of the improper registrations grew on Sept. 23, when DMV announced that it had completed an audit and found 1,259 people registered in error.
State election officials have said the errant registrations did not create a rush of illegal voting. As of last week, the secretary of state’s office said that it was looking into seven instances of a potential noncitizen casting a ballot. The office said it was not possible that potential noncitizens had swayed the outcome of any election.
But Monday’s report appears to have changed how two of Oregon’s top elected officials are looking at the matter.
Kotek initially reacted to the news of improper registrations by ordering an after-action report and directing the DMV to pursue an outside audit of its data handling practices. The agency has said it put new safeguards into place to ensure no noncitizens were being registered.
But the news of even more errant registrations calls into question just how deeply DMV examined the issue.
The agency has said it began looking into the accuracy of its automatic voter registration process after it received an inquiry in late July. That inquiry came from a think tank called the Institute for Responsive Government, which wanted to know if Oregon had had any problems with its motor voter law.
DMV says it became aware in early August that there had been erroneous registrations, but that it did not tell Kotek or Griffin-Valade about the problem until six weeks later.
Griffin-Valade said she was confident the recently identified errors would not alter the election.
Tobias Read, the Democrat who is running to be the next secretary of state, said in a statement he was “encouraged that these revelations are finally receiving the scrutiny they demand.”
“Oregonians deserve a thorough investigation of the automatic voter registration program’s implementation, as well as accountability at both the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Secretary of State’s Office. If that is not achieved by this investigation, I can assure you I will provide it if I am the next Secretary of State.”
His Republican opponent, Sen. Dennis Linthicum, has long raised questions about fraudulent activity when it comes to the way Oregonians vote. He’s not convinced the Democrats can be trusted to fix the issues.
The Oregon Republican Party has requested that the secretary of state cast a broader audit.
“She only looked at a small portion of voters registered at the DMV since 2021 and continues to insist that voter fraud is ‘extremely rare,’” reads a statement from Angela Plowhead, the party’s vice chair. “This small sample highlights how widespread inaccuracies in Oregon’s voter rolls are. The urgent need for an independent full and complete audit of the voter rolls is critical to ensure transparency and to reassure Oregonians that our elections are fair and free of fraud.”