In Oregon, officials acknowledged this week that more than 300 foreign nationals who were eligible to apply for driver's licenses had been mistakenly registered to vote, attributing it to a “data entry issue.”
In an initial analysis, the Oregon Department of Transportation found that 306 noncitizens were registered to vote statewide, and two have voted in elections since 2021. According to reports.
It is illegal for foreigners to vote in federal elections.
board member More instances of the error are expected to be found The investigation is ongoing, DMV Director Amy Joyce told The Oregonian on Friday.
“It's basically a data entry issue,” said Kevin Glenn, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, which oversees the DMV.
Oregon passed a “motor voter” law about a decade ago that automatically registered people over the age of 18 to vote when they applied for a new license or renewed an existing one. Then in 2019, the state passed a law that allowed certain people without proof of legal residency to obtain a driver's license, opening the door to potential errors. According to Willamette Week.
Hundreds of people who were mistakenly registered will be “notified by mail that they will not receive a ballot unless they prove they are eligible to vote,” Oregon Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin Valade said in a statement on Friday. Oregon conducts all of its elections by mail ballot.
“While this error is unfortunate, the Secretary and the Department of Elections support automatic voter registration and its many benefits,” Griffin Valade added.
Gov. Kristin Kotek said the error was discovered as the DMV and Secretary of State's office were conducting “due diligence” ahead of the 2024 elections.
“The Oregon DMV is taking immediate corrective steps to prevent this error from occurring in the future,” Kotek said. “This situation will not have any impact on the 2024 elections.”
The DMV is auditing its files, county clerks have been instructed to remove ineligible names from their rolls, and many candidates for public office across the state are calling for a full investigation into the incident.
Most US states issue documents such as welfare benefits, driver's licenses and in some cases federal voter registration documents without requiring applicants to provide proof of citizenship, The Washington Post reported in June.
Republicans and conservatives are calling for measures to prevent immigrants without proof of citizenship from being given voter registration forms.
The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Nevada Republican Party filed the lawsuit Thursday in the battleground state of Nevada, where 11,000 foreign nationals registered in the state's Department of Transportation system are registered to vote in the 2020 election.
With post wire
