Oregon DMV Admits More Errant Non-Citizen Voter Registrations...
Educate. Advocate. Mitigate. Activate!
Yesterday, the Oregon DMV reported it mistakenly allowed 118 people who were almost certainly non-citizens to register to vote, bringing the total number of errant registrations found in the last year to more than 1,700!
In the report, the DMV said all but one of the new discoveries involved people who were erroneously registered to vote between 2010 and 2023.
This is troubling since the DMV implemented new safeguards on its automatic voter registration system last fall. Because most of these mistakes occurred before last year and went undetected until recently, AT LEAST 13 OF THESE INDIVIDUALS VOTED IN AT LEAST ONE ELECTION!
Under law, non-citizens are prohibited from voting in national or local elections.
Most of the errors occurred because DMV’s software used between 2010 and 2020 allowed staff to manually select whether an ID or driver’s license applicant was a permanent resident, citizen, or neither. That led to staff mistakenly categorizing more than 100 individuals as citizens, automatically allowing them to register to vote through Oregon’s motor voter system.
In 2024, the DMV discovered over 1,600 individuals who did not provide proof of citizenship at the DMV had been wrongly registered to vote. Of those, just 17 had a voting history, several of whom voted legally because they became citizens before casting a ballot.
The errors prompted Gov. Kotek in October to pause Oregon’s motor voter system, which automatically registers people to vote when they renew or apply for a driver’s license or state ID card. The governor allowed the program to resume in February 2025 after an external review of DMV processes was conducted and the agency found no additional errors in several monthly reviews.
The agency is awaiting the results of an external audit of Oregon’s motor voter system, which is due at the end of April.
The Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing the newly found individuals’ voting records to determine whether they voted illegally or became citizens after being mistakenly registered and before they voted.
In response to the report, four Oregon House Republicans announced their plans to introduce legislation early next week to reassign automatic voter registration from the DMV to the Secretary of State.
“Supervising elections across Oregon’s 36 counties is one of the primary functions of the secretary of state,” Republican Reps. Vikki Breese Iverson of Prineville, Kim Wallan of Medford, Greg Smith of Heppner and Emily McIntire of Eagle Point said in a statement. “Elections should be housed entirely in one office overseen by an elected official, not unaccountable bureaucrats.”
AS A REMINDER: WA State Legislature Democrats’ (aka “The Anyone From Anywhere Can Vote Party”) latest ploy to register everyone possible to vote is now at warp speed with their proposed legislation SB 5077: Concerning expansion of voter registration services by government agencies. The new law would significantly expand voter registration services (way beyond the DMV) to include many other federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies.
Yes, more WA state-imposed "Automatic Voter Registration” (AVR) and widening the scope of AVR by extending it to more organizations and agencies. Gee, what could go wrong?
Bill Bruch
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Committee Chairman (5th year), WAGOP Executive Board Member (5th Year), Skagit County GOP Chairman (9th year), Citizen Journalist, Blogger, Business Owner, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016 and 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate.