PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) – After a review of records with the Oregon DMV revealed that some ineligible voters were registered before the 2024 election, lawmakers are saying they want answers.

On Monday, the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office revealed that a review found nine voters had been “improperly registered” without proving citizenship due to a data processing error at Oregon DMV” and had a voting history.

Of those nine voters, one more person was registered incorrectly but was still an eligible vote.

According to the DMV, this issue was the result of an error in their automatic voter registration system impacting 1,259 people. So far, 766,756 people have registered with the Oregon DMV, meaning the error accounted for roughly .0016% of voters.

The Secretary of State has ordered for these registrations to be inactivated due to the same error. These people will not get a ballot for Election Day on Nov. 5, but “will be given the opportunity to re-register if eligible” before the deadline on Oct. 15.

During a hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers demanded answers from the head of the Oregon Department of Transportation, which is in charge of the DMV, and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office, in charge of elections.

“This error means our automatic voter registration system is 99.9% effective. It’s our job as elected leaders to make this 100%,” House Majority Leader Ben Bowman said.

According to lawmakers, the 1,259 people registered incorrectly who were sent ballots had not asked for them. If these people were to eventually want to become a citizen, the state will send them a necessary “no fault” letter.

The head of ODOT said the DMV mistake “was a bad error and the timing awful.” However, the DMV said these voters did not impact previous elections and will not impact the upcoming 2024 election.

Officials with the Secretary of State’s Office said they checked the races where it had been possible for those misregistered people to vote — and found that none of those races had been determined by just a few votes. However, the office could not trace any individual ballots after the ballots were already separated from the signed returned envelopes.

Meanwhile, DMV bosses told lawmakers they have redesigned their computer programs to prevent this error in the future: When people get a license or ID card, staff will have to enter the state and county of birth when recording a U.S. birth certificate. Computers will no longer be able to default to “U.S. Passport.” DMV said staff will use separate screens for typing in citizen and non-citizen documents, and there will be more training and more checking by supervisors per a request from Gov. Tina Kotek.

“The DMV and Secretary of State have been up front about how the issue was identified, what has been implemented and what will change in the future,” Rep. Jason Kropf said. “I appreciate that they’ve been able to move quickly and make the necessary updates to their system. What I’m looking for is continued communication about their progress because we all should have full faith in Oregon’s voting process.”

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Eye on Northwest Politics

Some lawmakers are looking at introducing legislation in January 2025 to further tighten the process.

The Oregon Secretary of State, who is not running for office, was not at the hearing but instead in Portland working on election security measures in Multnomah County.

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