Following revelations that the country’s “motor voting” system registered more than 1,600 possible noncitizens, Oregon authorities are referring three cases of alleged noncitizen citizens to the state Department of Justice. However, Democrat state representative Ben Bowman acknowledged last fall that noncitizens had the ability to cast ballots thanks to the country’s implementation of motor-voting machines and mail-in votes.
” They voted as a result of a state mistake”, Bowman said in a September reading. ” They didn’t ask to be registered to vote, but they were by their state. Their authorities sent them votes, we all talked about the importance of voting, and then they voted”.
In earlier February, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read sent three reported noncitizen voter circumstances to the state Department of Justice.  ,
Following an investigation from the communist Institute for Responsive Government, state authorities found hundreds of potential noncitizens on the floats in September, as The Federalist had previously reported. More than 1, 600 possible unsuitable voters were discovered on the spins after looking at minimal data. Out of this variety, 10 cast ballots, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported. The secretary of state’s workplace is” however looking into” the rest of these circumstances, even though the Oregon DOJ is considering doing so, per OPB.
Additionally, in September, Bowman and members of the state House Rules Committee conducted interviews with election authorities about the safety gaps that made the state’s “motor voter” method for placing noncitizens on the rolls. Since the hear, officials have discovered more unsuitable registrants.
” We’ve got the nine people who voted, but then we’ve got 1, 250 persons who were registered”, Bowman said at the moment. I’m concerned that those people did not request to be registered, requested a vote be mailed to them, or requested that someone be listed on a list of people who, as you know, had broken the terms of any citizen process they were employed in.
Bowman inquired to the then-Elections Director Molly Woon about how officials may “protect these people from harm because of behavior taken by the government, not by them.” Woon responded that authorities were “working with authorities in immigration law.”
” We are in the process of putting together a no-fault email.” directions to this world of people on how to obtain a no-fault text from us that they can use if they decide to pursue the citizen operation, or go through, Woon said at the moment. She claimed that the words were scheduled to be mailed to disqualified registrants around the hearing’s start date.
Woon added that counties also sent letters to each possible unsuitable voter on the spins to give them a chance to demonstrate enrollment and reregister to cast ballots. The “investigations group” in the secretary of state’s Elections Division may mail letters giving a chance to “demonstrate if they are in fact ready” if clerks had not verify the citizenship of nine people who might have voted improperly. “ If they fail to do so, we will refer the cases to DOJ”, Woon said at the time.  ,
The leftist lawfare group Brennan Center for Justice has argued automatic voter registration will “increase accuracy” and “improve the security” of elections. The Washington Post and other corporate publications have repeatedly argued that automatic voter registration is “more accurate,” and USA Today even cited Oregon as an example of how the system increases voter turnout. But in Pennsylvania, officials had to launch an audit to ensure the “motor voter” system had not been registering noncitizens. And clearly, there were enough security lapses in Oregon’s “motor voter” system to register more than 1, 600 potentially ineligible voters.
” Through that process you had, there]were ] no safeguards to catch this”?, Republican state Rep. Jeff Helfrich asked DMV Administrator Amy Joyce at the time. You “didn’t have anything set up to audit this in advance”?
” That’s correct”, Joyce replied.  ,
As The Federalist previously reported, the Oregon DMV also processed more than 54, 600 voter registrations for individuals of “unknown citizenship” between June 2021 and October 2024.
Republican state Rep. Kim Wallan expressed concern that her previous questions about the security of Oregon’s “motor voter” system were dismissed.
How can we be certain that only citizens are registered to cast ballots? That question has been asked repeatedly. … I was so disturbed by the nonanswers that I got, because I usually got the answer,’ It’s fine, we check. We know that people are not being registered if they’re not citizens,'” Wallan said at the time. ” We didn’t have really systems in place, we certainly didn’t have checks. … It seems like it mattered who asked, who made this general inquiry. So who was it that “made this general inquiry” and why did you respond differently than we did?
In response, Joyce said,” I don’t think it matters who asked”, but she named the left-wing Institute for Responsive Government ( IRG ). ” We don’t have any, you know, contracts with them or anything like that, I think they’re sort of a good government, perhaps nonprofit”.
But the IRG is far more than a” good government” group. According to InfluenceWatch, the New Venture Fund is a subsidiary of the leftist dark money conglomerate Arabella Advisors, which funds and creates left-wing activist groups with millions from anonymous donors. Automatic voter registration, according to IRG, is a “modern and secure solution.” As The Federalist previously reported, the group offered$ 6 million in Zuckbucks-style grants to election officials ahead of November’s election.  ,
The leftist Center for Secure and Modern Elections ( CSME), which is a member of the Arabella Advisors network, is IRG Executive Director Sam Oliker-Friedland’s chief counsel. In 2020, CSME meddled in the election process.  ,
After officials discovered Oregon’s system had registered noncitizens voters, Woon and other top officials planned a briefing call with CSME, as The Federalist previously reported. Before Read replaced his predecessor ( then-Oregon Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade, another Democrat ), Woon and other top election officials announced they were resigning.  ,
Logan Washburn is a staff writer who writes about the integrity of elections. He is a The College Fix spring 2025 fellow. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is originally from Central Oregon, but he now resides in rural Michigan.
