Gov. Tina Kotek has called for a pause on automatically registering voters through the state’s Motor Voter law, but that doesn’t mean a person can’t still register to vote.
The deadline to register to receive a ballot for the general election is Oct. 15.
Earlier this week, the state announced it had unearthed hundreds more people than previously known who were improperly registered to vote under the state’s Motor Voter law.
The latest tally includes 302 people identified on Monday, according to an “after-action” report ordered by 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. There are about three million people registered to vote in the state.
Kotek has called on the DMV to pause the process of automatically registering drivers to vote through the state’s Motor Voter law. She also asked for an external audit. Republicans have taken to the issue — which fits into a broader national narrative pushed by former President Donald Trump of widespread voter fraud — and demanded a fuller examination of the state’s voters.
Pausing the Motor Voter program will have no effect on the upcoming election, according to information from the Oregon secretary of state’s office. There is always a cutoff point at which automatic registrations cannot be processed before an election, according to Laura Kerns with the secretary of state’s office. That cutoff date is always 42 days before an election, so this year it was near the end of September.
Sample Oregon driver's licenses and photo IDs in a rendering provided by the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicles Division. People who obtain or renew an Oregon driver's license or ID are automatically registered to vote under the state's 2016 Motor Voter law. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has told the DMV to pause the voter registration program.
Oregon DMV
Under Oregon’s 2016 Motor Voter law, people who obtain or renew a driver’s license are automatically registered to vote if they submit proof of U.S. citizenship. Drivers can choose to opt out of the system.
Oregon now says that a poorly laid out dropdown menu in a DMV computer program led workers to mistakenly indicate that noncitizens had presented U.S. passports or birth certificates when they had not.
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 those people actually voted.
Kotek initially reacted to the Motor Voter errors last month 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.
Monday’s acknowledgment of hundreds of additional 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.
Republicans, whose questions about the state’s vote-by-mail system increased after the 2020 presidential election, are requesting 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.”
