More than 300 people were registered to vote without providing proof of citizenship, in addition to 1,259 people last month.
Officials in Oregon
The mistakes occurred in part because Oregon passed a law in 2019 allowing some residents who aren’t citizens to obtain driver’s licenses.
And the state’s so-called “Motor Voter” law, which took effect in 2016, automatically registers most people to vote when they seek a new license or ID.Â
The announcement comes just two weeks after officials in the Beaver state said 1,259 possible noncitizens have been registered to vote since 2021, bringing the total number of mistaken registrations to 1,561.Â
On Monday, the DMV released an “After Action Report,” which identified errors in its processes that led to the mistakes, with Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade then directing county elections officials to inactivate all 302 voter registrations.
Griffin-Valade and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, both Democrats, called for an independent, external audit of the motor voter system in a joint statement.
“Thanks to the swift action of elections officials, I have full confidence that these new errors will not impact the 2024 election,” Griffin-Valade said. “The DMV’s After Action Report raises serious concerns about this important part of our voter registration system.
The first step in restoring the public’s trust in Motor Voter is a transparent review by a neutral third party operating under strict government auditing standards.”Â
DMV Administrator Amy Joyce said the agency believed two weeks ago that it was confident it understood and had reviewed all records at risk of error.
“We have since learned this confidence was misplaced based on new information outlined in this announcement and after-action report and for this, we are sorry,” Joyce said in a statement.
Griffin-Valade has ordered her office’s elections division to immediately hire a new Motor Voter oversight position, according to the statement. And she has instructed the division to establish a documented process for performing regular data checks with the DMV and update the administrative rules governing the Motor Voter system.
She said the Oregon Elections Division will work with the 36 county election officers to determine if any of the erroneously registered voters have previously cast a ballot.
Every registered voter in Oregon is sent a ballot in the mail and the state had an 81.97% voter turnout rate in 2020.
President Biden beat former President Trump comfortably in the 2020 election, winning the state by more than 380,000 votes.Â
