The Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services (DMV) and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office both confirmed that the DMV has mistakenly registered more than 300 non-U.S. citizens to vote since 2021.
Officials with the Oregon Department of Transportation said on Sept. 14 that a data entry problem occurred when people who were not citizens applied for driver’s licenses.
An initial analysis by the Oregon Department of Transportation, which oversees the state’s DMV, revealed that 306 noncitizens were registered to vote, according to Kevin Glenn, a department spokesperson. Of those, two voted in elections since 2021.
“It’s basically a data entry issue,” Glenn said, explaining that when a DMV worker enters information about a person applying for a driver’s license or state ID, the worker can incorrectly code that the person has a U.S. birth certificate or passport when that person does not.
Responding to the report, the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office said in a statement that Secretary LaVonne Griffin-Valade has ordered an update to 0.01 percent of voter registrations.
“Residents impacted by this issue were noncitizens at the time they were erroneously registered. They will be notified by mail that they will not receive a ballot unless they demonstrate that they are eligible to vote,” her office stated, noting that only two people who were registered to vote have a voting history but that their citizenship status when they cast ballots is not known.
Her office “moved quickly to update the voter rolls,” Griffin-Valade said, noting that the DMV has to “take immediate action” to make sure noncitizens can’t vote.
“Automatic voter registration has been hugely beneficial for thousands of eligible Oregon voters to ensure access to our democracy,” the secretary said in her statement.
“I’m confident the DMV is rectifying this error and improving their process, so it doesn’t happen again.”
The mistake occurred in part because Oregon has allowed noncitizens to obtain driver’s licenses for the past several years, and the DMV automatically registers most people to vote when they obtain a license or other ID, according to Glenn.
A 2019 bill that was passed in the state Legislature allowed people in Oregon to get driver’s licenses without showing proof of citizenship. The law went into effect in 2021.
The administrator for the DMV, Amy Joyce, told The Oregonian that her office is trying to check for possible errors involving any other noncitizens and allowing them to vote.
State and federal laws prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in any elections.
Several state and federal lawmakers in Oregon called for further investigations after the issue was revealed.
State Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat, said the U.S. Department of Justice should get involved and probe the issue.
“Any errors in this process are unacceptable, and the office of the Secretary of State must be held responsible for any such lapses. I will relentlessly defend our laws and safeguard the integrity of our elections,” she told the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
U.S. House Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) also called for an investigation, telling the paper that the DMV engaged in “total malpractice.”
“I am calling on the state to act quickly to remove these individuals from the rolls, conduct a full and transparent investigation into how this occurred, and provide concrete steps they are taking to remedy this issue and prevent it from happening again,” she said.
“However, I want to emphasize that this was a bureaucratic error by the Oregon DMV and not a systemic attempt to cheat the system by organizations or individuals.”
In recent weeks, other states have announced purges to voter rolls.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that a recent review found that 597 people were registered to vote despite not being U.S. citizens.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this year that reviews showed that more than 6,500 possible noncitizens were removed from state voter rolls. More than 1,900 of those people had a history of voting, his office said.
