The Lane County Elections Office was notified on Sept. 13 that the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles had mistakenly marked 11 non-citizens as eligible to vote in Lane County and those people were subsequently registered by the Oregon Elections Division.
After a careful audit, Lane County Elections officials said that none of the 11 mistakenly registered non-citizens returned a ballot in Lane County.
The non-citizen registrations have been removed from Lane County’s active voter roll and they will no longer receive ballots, including for the upcoming Nov. 5 General Election. Those 11 people will be contacted by letter to inform them of the error.
“People were registered to vote in Oregon who should not have been and that’s unacceptable,” Rep. Val Hoyle said in a statement on Monday. “There should be a full investigation into how this happened and there needs to be accountability. Ultimately, the process failed here, and it needs to be fixed immediately. Every eligible voter needs to have access to the ballot, but anyone who voted illegally should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law because that is how we defend the integrity of our elections.”
Lane County officials said in a release that they are, “committed to a transparent and accountable elections process and are appreciative of the Oregon Elections Division’s swift action to notify election officials across the state of this error.”
If you have evidence that an election law is being violated, including evidence of unlawful voting, it should be reported at sos.oregon.gov/investigation.
To learn more about election security in Lane County, visit LaneCountyOR.gov/electionsecurity.
— Chronicle News Service
