Nearly two weeks after discovering that hundreds of noncitizens registered to vote in Oregon, more details emerged in testimony before state lawmakers on Sept. 25.
Oregon’s automatic voter registration system has come under fire since the secretary of state’s office and the Department of Transportation disclosed on Sept. 13 that more than 306 people had mistakenly been added to the voter rolls without obtaining proof of U.S. citizenship.
In its original disclosure, the transportation department had discovered its own errors indicating that noncitizens had been added to the voter rolls and that two of them had voted illegally.
During the hearing, Department of Transportation Director Kris Strickler acknowledged that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) actually discovered the errors only after an inquiry from the Institute for Responsive Government, a Chicago-based nonprofit. He also acknowledged that the number of noncitizens had grown to 1,259, and that 10 of them had gone on to vote….