DMV voter flub affects county rolls

A total of 39 non-citizens were mistakenly registered to vote in Yamhill County and have since been removed from voter rolls, according to County Clerk Keri Hinton.

Last month, the Department of Motor Vehicles identified 1,259 registered voters that were incorrectly deemed U.S. citizens, likely by employee error, through the Oregon Motor Voter program (which automatically registers voters). Gov. Tina Kotek paused the program and ordered an immediate audit earlier this month.

Hinton told the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners Thursday that none of the 39 identified people had voting histories, all have been notified whether they would like to register with proof of citizenship, and an additional security measure has been implemented to make sure the error doesn’t impact next month’s election.

“All of the identified records have been flagged to provide a second layer of security to ensure any ballots from this group that may have been sent out or generated are not counted without first verifying eligibility,” she said. “This corrective action taken ensures this error will not have any impact on the 2024 election.”

The county was informed of the errors in three waves, finding out about four cases on Sept. 13, an additional 23 on Sept. 23, and 12 more on Oct. 7, according to Hinton.

The office reviews every registration submitted and Hinton said anyone with evidence of voter fraud should contact her office.

“As the Yamhill County Clerk, I will continue to be vigilant to ensure that election process is safe, secure and transparent,” she said. “If anyone ever has any evidence of a person who may be unlawfully registered to vote, please send that to our office immediately. We take that very seriously and we will look into it.”

Commissioner Mary Starrett was complimentary of Hinton’s office but railed against the DMV as “not really been up to the task of self-policing and giving us accurate information,” and the overall Oregon voting rules.

“So basically we’ve got mail-in ballots which are just rife for fraud. We now have the state saying, well we’re going to use taxpayer money so you don’t even need to use a stamp, there’s no ID required and we don’t even know how many more people are on this DMV list, not to mention the other avenues of registering to vote without being legal. So really in the State of Oregon there’s nothing you can do about (it) other than we look at a legislative fix … because we have every single possible hole for voter fraud,” she said.

“You’re doing yeoman’s work of trying to just get through all this and keep it on the up-and-up,” Starrett told Hinton. “I think the bigger message here is the State of Oregon needs to get its act together because we’re just asking for the fraud that has been brought to us.”

Hinton said the DMV’s report gave a detailed explanation of what happened and the resulting audit will likely inform better policies in the future.

“I think that after all of this is said and done and once we can get through this audit, then there will be definitely more steps taken to ensure that the integrity of our voting system is up to what it should be,” she said.

Hinton’s office continues to follow instructions from the Secretary of State and state and federal statutes along with daily looks at the accuracy of voter rolls.

“Any record that comes into our office is physically reviewed by an individual,” she said.

Commission Chair Lindsay Berschauer reflected on a budget decision to add resources to the clerk’s office for what was expected to be an “intense election.”

“The purpose of that decision was to make sure that you did have the resources that you need to conduct this election,” she told Hinton. “So I’m proud of not only my colleagues for making that decision, but also the citizen budget committee members as well that they recognized that.

“We appreciate everything that your team is doing.”