Oregon’s Democrat Secretary of State, LaVonne Griffin-Valade, is dismissing concerns about noncitizen voters in her state despite evidence showing over 1,200 noncitizens were erroneously registered to vote. According to Sec. Griffin-Valade, instances of noncitizen voting are “exceedingly rare.” She also defended the state’s so-called “motor-voter” system—an automatic voter registration program—despite recent revelations that noncitizens were listed as eligible voters due to a data entry error.
The National Pulse reported last week that 300 noncitizens had initially been identified on Oregon’s state voter rolls. However, the number has risen to 1,259 upon further investigation by state officials. After the initial discovery, Sec. Griffin-Valade insisted that the registered noncitizens “will be notified by mail that they will not receive a ballot unless they demonstrate that they are eligible to vote.”
However, as nine of the noncitizen voters in Oregon have already cast ballots in the election, Griffin-Valade’s office deactivated all 1,259 registrations pending additional review. This means other than the nine who have cast ballots, these individuals will not receive mail-in ballots for the upcoming 2024 election but will have the opportunity to re-register if they provide proper documentation proving their eligibility.
Griffin-Valade attributed the erroneous registrations to manual errors at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), where staff mistakenly recorded foreign identification as U.S. identification, triggering the automatic voter registration system. The DMV has implemented a verification prompt on data entry screens and daily audits of all transactions before finalizing registrations in hopes this will prevent future errors.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, but academic research indicates poor vetting results in many doing so regardless, swaying election outcomes.
