Oregon state officials announced Monday that they have identified 302 new people on the state's voter rolls who did not provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
The announcement comes just two weeks after Beaver State officials announced that 1,259 potential non-citizens have been registered to vote since 2021, bringing the total number incorrectly registered to 1,561. Ta.
The mistake occurred in part because Oregon passed a law in 2019 that allowed some non-citizens to obtain driver's licenses. The state's so-called “motor voter” law, which went into effect in 2016, automatically registers most people to vote when they seek a new license or ID.
Oregon DMV admits 1,260 non-citizens eligible to vote were incorrectly registered
Oregon residents drop off their ballots near the Multnomah County Elections Building in Portland on November 3, 2020. (Uncle Dholakia/AFP via Getty Images)
Improper voter registration is the result of a clerical error at the state DMV.
The DMV released an “after-action report” on Monday that identified process errors that led to the mistake, and Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Varedo told county election officials to invalidate all 302 voter registrations. I was instructed to do so.
In a joint statement, Griffin Varade and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, both Democrats, called for an independent external audit of the car voting system.
“Thanks to the swift action of election officials, we are confident that these new errors will not affect the 2024 election,” Griffin-Valade said. “The DMV's after-action report raises serious concerns about this critical part of the voter registration system. This is a transparent review conducted by a neutral third party.
Tina Kotek, then Democratic gubernatorial candidate, speaks with members of the media before voting in Portland on November 2, 2022. (Getty Images)
DMV Administrator Amy Joyce said the agency believed two weeks ago that it understood and reviewed all records at risk of error.
“Based on this announcement and the new information outlined in the follow-up report, we now know that this confidence was misplaced, and we regret this,” Joyce said in a statement. “DMV remains committed to continuous learning, corrective action, transparency, and accountability in accordance with the Governor’s direction.”
Griffin-Valade has ordered her office's elections division to immediately hire a motor vehicle voter supervisor position, the statement said. And she directed the department to establish a documented process to perform regular data checks with the DMV and update administrative regulations governing the motor vehicle voter system.
He said the Oregon Department of Elections will work with 36 county election officials to determine whether any of the incorrectly registered voters have voted previously. All registered voters in Oregon received a ballot by mail, and the state's 2020 turnout was 81.97%. In the 2020 election, President Biden easily defeated former President Trump, winning the state by a margin of more than 380,000 votes.
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Of the 302 additional cases, 178 were caused by people from American Samoa who were incorrectly classified as U.S. citizens, according to the DMV report.
However, under federal law, people from American Samoa are U.S. citizens, not citizens, and do not have the same voting rights. Another 123 records were due to previously identified clerical errors but were not included in the previous review due to newly identified software issues. And one was caught by the DMV's new quality control.
Griffin-Valade's office said it is doing everything it can to ensure that the 302 voters who registered in error do not receive their ballots, but cannot guarantee that all 302 ballots will be removed before they are mailed. Her office has processes in place to ensure those ballots are not opened or counted.
Of the 1,259 potential non-citizens identified last month, at least one became a citizen before voting, but 10 who mistakenly registered continued to vote, according to the Oregon Secretary of State.
State officials announced Monday that they have identified 302 additional people on the state's voter rolls who did not provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. (Mathieu Louis Rolland/Getty Images)
DMV audits show staff members mistakenly selected “U.S. passport” when presented with a foreign passport or “U.S. birth certificate” when given a foreign document. , it turns out, could have triggered voter registration.
The DMV says the drop-down menu has been rearranged and “U.S. Passport” is no longer the default first option. Officials also must enter states and counties to obtain all U.S. birth certificates and respond to prompts to verify that the document is accurate when passport information is entered.
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About half of all states and Washington, D.C., have automatic voter registration, according to the newspaper. National Conference of State Legislatures.
However, many claims of improper registration have occurred even in states without automatic registration.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced in August that officials had removed 1.1 million ineligible names from voter rolls since the 2020 presidential election.
The Ohio Secretary of State has referred 138 non-citizens who are believed to have voted in past elections to the state attorney general for possible criminal charges.
Conservative watchdog groups are also suing Maricopa County, Arizona, for failing to exclude more than 35,000 people who failed to provide proof of citizenship.
FOX News' Hannah Rae Lambert and Anders Hagström and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
