PORTLAND, Ore. — More than 300 noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote in Oregon over the last three years through a data entry error with the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicles Services (DMV), Willamette Week reported.
Only two have a voting history and are believed to have cast ballots, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said. It's not known if they were citizens at the time.
The error occurred when DMV staff entered information into their system, Griffin-Valade said. People requesting a new driver's license or ID must present identity documents. In some cases, staff entered "US passport" when the document was actually a foreign passport or "U.S. Birth Certificate" instead of foreign birth certificate. This led to the person's information being sent to the state's voter registration system.
After finding out about the error on Thursday, people who were mistakenly registered were notified by mail within 24 hours that they will not receive a ballot unless they demonstrate that they are eligible to vote, the secretary of state's office said.
“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."
The DMV’s initial review shows that the error impacted 0.01% of voter registrations in the state, which included 306 noncitizens, according to Kevin Glenn of the Oregon Department of Transportation.
The DMV said it is currently updating those voter registrations.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said she's been fully briefed, and the error was discovered because the Oregon DMV and Griffin-Valade "were doing their due diligence ahead of the 2024 election."
"This situation will not impact the 2024 election in any way," Kotek added. "At my direction, the Oregon DMV is taking urgent corrective action to prevent any such error from occurring in the future."
Some, like House Republican Leader Rep. Jeff Helfrich of Salem, have jumped to calling for a further investigation to be done. In a statement, state Representative Janelle Bynum, who is also running for Congress, called for the state attorney general to launch a full-scale investigation.
"Any errors in this process are unacceptable, and the Office of the Secretary of State must be held responsible for any such lapses," Bynum said.
Congresswoman Andrea Salinas also issued a statement, calling the incident "unacceptable."
"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. 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," she added.
The Associated Press contributed to the reporting of this story.