Oregonians who apply for a new driver’s license or state ID often sail through the transaction without learning a notable piece of information: They might be automatically registered to vote, if they aren’t already.

That would change under new rules being considered by the Oregon Secretary of State. The office has been studying ways to address shortcomings in the state’s automatic voter registration policy following revelations that lax safeguards and data entry errors led to an untold number of noncitizens unwittingly being registered to vote.

Following three months of weekly meetings by an advisory committee, elections officials are mulling tweaks to improve the process.

The most impactful may be simply requiring clerks at the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicles department to tell registrants who have proven their citizenship that they will be added to the voter rolls – and how to opt out of that, if they choose.

Included in the new proposed administrative rules, for the first time, is a requirement that DMV workers “shall provide verbal or written notice to all apparently qualified individuals that their information will be used to register them to vote.”

It’s not the only notable change officials are considering.

Rather than being added to voter rolls via the automatic registration process, which takes weeks, another proposal would allow DMV workers to register people immediately when a deadline to register for an upcoming election is within 30 days.

The DMV already offers that option to people who don’t definitively prove or disprove their citizenship when getting a license.

Oregonians registering to vote must sign a statement swearing they are a U.S. citizen who is eligible to vote.

Under Oregon’s 2016 Motor Voter law, people who obtain or renew a driver’s license are automatically registered to vote if they submit proof of U.S. citizenship.

But evidence emerged last year that some people who did not present documents proving citizenship, or even showed foreign passports, were at times automatically registered.

To date, the state has found more than 1,700 such registrations. Few of those people ultimately voted, but the revelations prompted added scrutiny on the Motor Voter law.

State officials say staff mistakes and a confusing computer interface were to blame for the errors. The DMV has bolstered staff training, altered its computer program, and instituted new safeguards designed to ensure mistakes are eliminated.

But while monitoring shows new mistakes are not occurring, Oregon officials aren’t sure how many people were registered in error over the years. The DMV has been catching and correcting errant registrations as Oregonians apply for new Real IDs, the identification that has grown in importance as air travelers need a passport or other federally-approved verification to board domestic flights.

“Oregonians’ confidence in our elections and the safety of vulnerable communities depends on us getting the automatic voter registration process right,” Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat, said in a release on the new proposed rules. “This is why we are fortifying the system with clearer rules and stronger safeguards for every step of the registration process.”

Many of the policies put forward by Read’s advisory committee are already in practice. The proposed change would merely ensure they are part of the state’s administrative rules.

But the provisions to inform people they are being registered and offer the option of registering early near crucial deadlines are new. So is a proposal that would require DMV workers to inform applicants that the signature they provide will be used for comparison when they sign their ballot.

The Secretary of State’s office is accepting comments on the rules changes until Jan. 13 at 5 p.m. A half-hour virtual hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Jan. 6 at 11:30 a.m. Additional details are here.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/01/oregon-officials-consider-tweaks-motor-voter-process/