PORTLAND, Ore. — More than 50 additional ineligible people were mistakenly registered to vote in Oregon, according to a new report from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles released Thursday.
This week — two days after the Nov. 5 election — the Oregon Department of Transportation released an update on voter registration errors in a first-of-its kind monthly report. It showed 56 potential noncitizens were accidentally registered to vote in Oregon.
A spokesperson for the DMV told KGW all 56 registrations were deactivated and flagged, and none had any voting history. If any ballots were submitted, they wouldn't have been counted in this year's election.
These 56 are in addition to the more than 1,200 people found to have been mistakenly registered to vote without proof of U.S. citizenship back in September. Records showed that nine had cast ballots in a prior election.
Elections staff at the time confirmed the issue with those registrations had been corrected and those votes, if submitted, would not impact the November 2024 election. The new error involving the 56 registrations was found during a second review of the original records in question.
Back in October, Governor Tina Kotek called for an audit of the DMV’s Motor Voter program and a pause on the transfer of DMV voter registration information to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. KGW reached out to Kotek’s office Friday for comment and has not received one yet.
So, what went wrong?
According to the DMV, the problem largely came down to clicking the wrong button, on top of a lack of fail-safes. Staff were accidentally selecting the wrong option from a drop-down menu, in some cases miscoding foreign passports as U.S. passports.
“I think that's messed up … if that slip up is happening with that, what else are they slipping up on?” said Shanesha, who was getting a new license at the Southwest Portland DMV on Friday.
“I think that sort of thing is kind of bound to happen,” added another woman at the Southwest Portland DMV.
“I think that there shouldn't have been a mistake like that made at all — honestly, how do you make a mistake like that?” said Stavros, also getting a new license at the Southwest Portland DMV on Friday.
They were other weak points in the system, however, and not all of the ineligible registrations were for noncitizens with foreign documentation. In some cases, the DMV has later found that individuals were eligible to vote, but did not have the proper paperwork at the time that they visited the DMV. Others, specifically from U.S. territories, had a proper U.S. passport but should not have been eligible to vote in all elections.
A spokesperson for the DMV sent KGW the following statement, saying in part:
"Oregon DMV is working hard to improve the Oregon Motor Voter system. We have already put in place several changes to our system to reduce the risk of human error and developed and conducted intensive training on how to do the work well and emphasize why it matters so much.”
“I definitely would like them to do more investigation, just because anything with the DMV ... that's pretty big,” Shanesha said.
A month ago, Gov. Tina Kotek ordered the DMV to pause the Motor Voter program until a full-scale review could be completed.
DMV officials told KGW they are making several changes, including monthly sampling of voter registration records and providing reports to the governor. Staff will also be required to take annual training sessions to try and prevent this from happening. The most recent review of October records — after changes were put in place — found zero errors.