Oregon DMV admits to illegally registering hundreds of non-citizens since 2021 via motor voter program

More than 300 non-citizens were mistakenly registered to vote in Oregon over the past three years due to errors by the state’s Driver and Motor Vehicles (DMV) services. The issue arose after Oregon passed a bill allowing individuals to obtain driver’s licenses without needing to prove US citizenship. Oregon's elections are conducted via mail-in ballots.

According to Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, the error occurred when DMV staff mistakenly selected “US passport” or “US birth certificate” instead of foreign equivalents while entering documentation data for individuals applying for driver’s licenses. This error led to non-citizens being added to the voter registration system.

Griffin-Valade noted that of the more than 300 improperly registered individuals, only two are believed to have actually cast ballots. It remains unclear whether those individuals were citizens at the time of voting. Once the error was identified on Thursday, the affected individuals were notified by mail that they would not receive ballots unless they are eligible voters, according to a report by KGW8.

“Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is my top priority,” said Griffin-Valade. “When my office was made aware of this error, we moved quickly to update the voter rolls. I am also personally calling on the DMV to take immediate action to improve its processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again."

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek reassured the public that the error "will not impact the 2024 election in any way," and added that the DMV was taking “urgent corrective action” to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Regardless, some state lawmakers have demanded further investigation into the error. State Representative Janelle Bynum called for a full-scale inquiry, stating that any errors in the election process are "unacceptable." Similarly, Democratic Congresswoman Andrea Salinas echoed the call for an investigation, while emphasizing that this was a bureaucratic error, not a deliberate effort to manipulate the system.

"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," Salinas said in a statement. "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."