The Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division and the Oregon Secretary of State recently found nine possibly ineligible voters with voting histories who registered to vote without proving citizenship due to a data processing error at Oregon DMV.
Oregon DMV reviewed the impacted records and found 10 people possibly registered to vote erroneously; it’s unclear if they are illegal immigrants. However, it confirmed one was eligible to vote, according to a press release from the Secretary of State.
The SoS ordered 953 voter registrations inactive this week, along with 306 people last week; this means 1,259 people will not receive a ballot in the 2024 election unless they re-register to vote.
“Because of this quick response, I can assure Oregonians that the 2024 General Election will not be affected by this error in any way,” Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said. “Noncitizen voting remains exceedingly rare in Oregon and around the country. We can continue to be proud that automatic voter registration is just one of the ways we ensure eligible Oregonians have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.”
Here are some statistics on how the data processing error impacts the state, according to the release:
766,756 people have registered to vote through Oregon Motor Voter.1,259 people impacted by the data processing error (0.1% of the total number of DMV records transferred).9 people potentially ineligible to vote with a voting history that were subject to the error.1.4 million records reviewed to ensure the error was corrected.
The DMV notes that this coding error happened at the start of 2021, meaning it did not impact the 2020 presidential election. It happened because that is when Oregon started accepting foreign passports and birth certificates as forms of identification for undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.
The DMV provided records on all 1,259 people potentially registered to vote in error to the SoS this week.
“Upon receiving the data, the SoS ordered the inactivation of all voters on the list and immediately communicated to those individuals with the opportunity to re-register if eligible with adequate time to do so prior to the election,” the release said. “The last day to register to vote is Oct. 15. No individual from this group of voters will receive a ballot if they are not eligible to vote.”
The DMV incorrectly identified these people as being eligible for automatic voter registration.
The DMV has not yet explained how this error happened. It said a DMV employee may have accidentally selected a U.S. passport or U.S. birth certificate instead of a foreign passport or foreign birth certificate when entering people’s information into the state’s system.
“Because having a U.S. version of either of those documents means a person is a citizen, the system included them in the file DMV sent to the Elections Division,” the release said.
The Institute for Responsive Government called ODOT’s Information Systems branch to ask how automatic voter registration was going and if there were any issues, prompting the review.
“Due to the critical importance of the issue, DMV exercised due diligence and looked into the automatic voter registration process ahead of the 2024 election,” the release said.
Here are the corrective actions the DMV will take in hopes of preventing this problem moving forward, according to the release:
Data entry procedure: The database drop-down menu that provides identity document options has been re-sorted alphabetically, so U.S. passport is not the first default document. This reduces the potential of selecting an incorrect document from the top of the menu as the default.Require Entering State and County on U.S. Birth Certificates: DMV staff are now required to enter the state and county for all U.S. birth certificates. Adding this step decreases the likelihood that a foreign birth certificate will be misidentified as a U.S. birth certificate.Confirmation prompt: DMV added a confirmation prompt after a U.S. passport document is keyed into the system, so DMV staff need to confirm the documentation type is accurate.Added a third step to the verification process: DMV has added a third step to the identity document verification process. The two-step process that has been in place for years is the initial check of the staff and then a re-verification of document validity by someone else. As a third step, each day, the manager also compares each transaction’s system code to its scanned document to verify the entry in the system matches the document shown. This will catch instances where one type of document—such as a foreign passport—is noted on the form, but a different type of document—such as a U.S. passport—is keyed into the system.
More information about this issue is available here.
