Oregon elections officials said Wednesday that votes by non-U.S. citizens could not have influenced the outcome of any state race in the past four years.
鈥淭here was no contest in which their participation could have had an impact on the outcome of the race,鈥� Ben Morris, chief of staff to Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, told a legislative committee.
That finding 鈥� the result of an analysis of races in which potential noncitizens voted 鈥� was one of the only new pieces of information to emerge as lawmakers probed into revelations Oregon has mistakenly registered 1,259 people to vote since 2021 without securing proof of their citizenship.
According to results of an audit , as many as nine people might have voted since early 2021 even though they were not citizens. Officials have stressed that none of those registered improperly actively sought to deceive the government. State elections leaders have blamed the problem on a clerical error within the DMV.
Wednesday鈥檚 hearing before the House Rules Committee came at a sensitive time: weeks before a high-stakes presidential election and as unsubstantiated claims about mass noncitizen voting are a common talking point for former President Donald Trump. House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, the committee鈥檚 chair, warned his fellow lawmakers to keep overt politics in check.
鈥淭his is an oversight hearing,鈥� he said at the beginning of the one-hour hearing. 鈥淥versight should be bipartisan and productive and that will be the goal of this hearing鈥� There鈥檚 no question that the errors identified by the DMV and secretary of state are absolutely unacceptable.鈥�
Bowman called the hearing on Tuesday, after more than a week of urging by Republican lawmakers eager to ask questions of officials who they feel have snubbed their questions about voting integrity in the past.
鈥淚 have asked, 鈥楬ow can we be sure that only citizens are registered to vote?鈥欌�� said state Rep. Kim Wallan, R-Medford, a member of the committee. 鈥淚鈥檝e asked that question multiple times. I鈥檝e usually gotten the answer: 鈥業t鈥檚 fine. We check.鈥欌��
But Wallan said the findings of recent weeks suggest otherwise.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have systems in place,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e certainly didn鈥檛 check."
Data entry errors
According to state officials, the errant registrations were the result of both staff inattention and a poorly laid out computer program. For nearly a decade, Oregon has automatically registered people to vote when they obtain or renew a driver鈥檚 license, a policy known as Oregon Motor Voter. But the DMV is only supposed to forward a person鈥檚 information to elections officials if they provide proof they are a U.S. citizen.
The DMV it had discovered in an audit that some clerks had entered people into the system as providing a U.S. passport or birth certificate, when in fact they had provided documents from other countries.
DMV Administrator Amy Joyce has blamed a computer program that defaulted to a U.S. document as workers were entering data into the system. She said the agency has since changed the layout of the program and taken other steps, making it virtually impossible for staff to mistakenly signal a person has proved citizenship.
For instance, when a DMV staffer indicates a person has provided a U.S. passport, a dialogue box now pops up on their computer ensuring they meant to select that option, Joyce said. If staff selects U.S. birth certificate, they are now required to enter the state and county it came from.
DMV has said it began looking into the integrity of its data entry after a relatively vague inquiry from a think tank called the Institute for Responsive Government, which asked if the state had seen any errors in its pioneering Motor Voter Law.
鈥淲hen we learned of that, we decided then that鈥檚 a key that we need to start digging in,鈥� Joyce told lawmakers. 鈥淣ow let me state the obvious: Should we have been looking sooner than a few months before the election? I think what鈥檚 critical here is that when we were posed with the question 鈥� on such an important issue and with the election coming very soon 鈥� we knew we had to dig in.鈥�
State elections officials are still trying to determine how many of the people improperly added to voter rolls returned a ballot illegally. Reviews by county officials already showed that one person had become a citizen by the time they voted, said state Elections Director Molly Woon.
County elections officials were working to determine Wednesday whether others also might have done so. The state plans to send out letters to any voter whose citizenship status remains unclear, Woon said. The secretary of state will forward any suspected incidences of noncitizens voting to the Oregon Department of Justice.
Democratic lawmakers have suggested they would oppose attempts to prosecute people for voting illegally, or to penalize them in any way for the state鈥檚 mistake. Some have worried people seeking citizenship could have that effort derailed because of Oregon鈥檚 errors.
鈥淭hose folks did not ask to be registered. They did not ask to have a ballot mailed to them,鈥� Bowman said. 鈥淲hat is being done to ensure that those individuals are not harmed because of actions taken by the government, not by them?鈥�
Woon, the elections director, said her office would provide letters of 鈥渘o fault鈥� upon request, verifying errant registrations were the state鈥檚 responsibility alone.
State Rep. Anna Scharf, R-Amity, asked officials whether people registered in error were assigned a political party, or designated as non-affiliated voters as would normally happen. Woon said she hadn鈥檛 analyzed that.
Scharf also asked if the federal government had signaled it would investigate the state for the errors. State officials said they鈥檇 not gotten wind of any investigation.
Closing out the hearing, House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, noted there are still two days left for lawmakers to submit bills to be drafted for the 2025 session. He asked if the Oregon Department of Transportation wanted him to put in a bill on its behalf to help correct the errors it had found.
ODOT Director Kris Strickler declined, saying the agency was conducting increased training and would commission an external review of its data handling processes.
Even so, Republicans made clear they will push legislation next year aimed at the matter. Helfrich, Scharf and Wallan issued a release Wednesday saying they鈥檒l introduce legislation requiring the Secretary of State to audit voter rolls, and to independently verify the eligibility of anyone registered to vote via the DMV.
鈥淲hile we appreciate the steps the state has taken to prevent problems in the future, more must be done to ensure that Oregon鈥檚 elections are safe, secure and accurate,鈥� the lawmakers said in a statement. 鈥淥nly Americans should vote in American elections, and Republicans will always defend the integrity of our elections.鈥�
