Oregon Transportation Commission meets in Bend, gets update on steps taken over DMV voter registration errors

(Update: adding video)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Oregon Transportation Commission met in Bend on Thursday and got updates on a variety of issues, from lawmakers' recent statewide transportation tour to the many steps taken to resolve the Motor Voter registration of thousands of possible non-citizens - and to keep it from happening again.

The meeting also brought OTC members to Bend for Wednesday's ribbon-cutting on the $195 million Bend North Corridor Project, a ceremony cut short when a dust devil upended a tent and sent it flying, injuring a few people. ODOT Director Kris Strickler told the gathering at the Bend Riverhouse Lodge he was "happy to report" that all of those injured are "on the mend."

The Bend session also happened to be Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang's first meeting since being appointed to the statewide commission by Gov. Tina Kotek and approved last month by the state Senate.

On the DMV issues, Travis Brouwer, ODOT’s assistant director for revenue, finance and compliance, expressed a great deal of self-admitted 20/20 hindsight about what became a major political mess after a think tank raised the issue of drivers approved for voter registration without presenting proof of US citizenship.

“We were all very surprised at the first pull of data,” Brouwer said, adding that “in hindsight, we should have dived in earlier.” When such errors came to light previously, they were treated as “one off” and there was no check by the DMV or secretary of state’s office for systemic issues, such as errors in how they configured the system.

Brouwer acknowledged a "sense of humility and penitence" over how the issues came to light and what was found, and said the agency was taking full responsibility for the errors.

"We are responsible for making sure we get this right," he said.

Brouwer stressed that in all but a very small number of cases, the problems arose not due to "mistakes by workers," but "errors in how we configured the system."

Steps taken have ranged from reconfiguring drop-down menus – re-sorted so that the US passport is not the default entry - to adding “document country” as a required field, and daily checks that the data matches – among moves the said should “nearly eliminate” the potential for similar issues human error.

When asked about the added time the changes could take DMV personnel as a result, Brouwer said the added checks “shouldn’t take more than a few seconds more per transaction.”

Jillian Fortner was at Thursday’s meeting and will have a report on NewsChannel 21 at Five.

Here’s the full DMV presentation:

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