Oregon’s Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade is defending the state’s voter registration process after her office mistakenly registered 1,259 noncitizens to vote. Despite this discovery, Griffin-Valade claims that noncitizen voting is “exceedingly rare.”
The error was first uncovered when Griffin-Valade’s office found more than 300 noncitizens registered to vote through the state’s “motor voter” system. The program automatically registers individuals when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses at the DMV. Further investigation revealed that the issue was much larger, with an additional 953 noncitizens added to the voter rolls, bringing the total to 1,259.
Nine of these individuals had already cast ballots, which is a federal crime. The state’s investigation found that DMV workers had made errors in processing documents such as foreign passports and birth certificates, resulting in noncitizens being registered to vote.
Griffin-Valade has since deactivated these registrations and assured that none of the individuals will receive ballots for the 2024 election. However, they will have the chance to re-register with the correct documentation.
This incident has raised questions about the effectiveness of Oregon’s automatic voter registration system and whether noncitizen voting is as rare as Griffin-Valade claims. Critics are calling for more robust safeguards to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
