PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) – Officials in Oregon say the Department of Motor Vehicles may have mistakenly registered voters without confirming their citizenship.
The Oregon Secretary of State made the announcement on Friday.
According to Oregon officials, the mistake happened because DMV staff entered the wrong identity documentation into the system.
DMV customers are required to show identity documents when they request a new driver’s license or identification card.
However, the DMV staff entered the wrong document type into the system.
According to the DMV, the errors were found while it was “proactively analyzing the system in advance of the 2024 election.”
The state secretary said they were informed about the issue this week.
An example given of what happened was staff entering a U.S. Passport when the person actually presented a foreign passport. The system then included them in the file that it sent to the Elections Division for the next step in the voter registration process.
Officials said a preliminary internal audit showed this impacted .01% of total voters registered in the state.
It’s illegal for non-citizens to vote in local or federal elections.
“This is total malpractice on the part of the Department of Motor Vehicles and is completely unacceptable. I am calling on the state to act quickly to remove these individuals from the rolls, and conduct a full and transparent investigation into how this occurred,” Congresswoman Andrea Salinas said.
The DMV said in a statement that to prevent this error from happening again, it has immediately added a prompt in the data entry screen to make sure staff enter correct citizenship information.
The agency has also added a daily audit of records with a two-step verification by the front desk staff to ensure records are correct before they are forwarded to the Elections Division.
“Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is my top priority,” said Secretary Griffin-Valade. “I’m confident the DMV is rectifying this error and improving their process, so it doesn’t happen again.”
The DMV said it is working to confirm birth-certificate-based registrations, a process that will likely take up to two weeks, but something that will be completed before ballots are mailed out in the state.
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