Audit: Voter data lacks citizenship proof

Kotek-requested, state-funded audit finds one out of 35 DMV transactions were marked "citizen" (and eligible for voting) when database lacked proof

A State of Oregon-funded audit found the records of one out of 35 randomly selected individuals in the Department of Motor Vehicles’ database, all marked as having provided proof of citizenship and thus eligible for automatic voter registration, had no proof of citizenship in the database.

As of September 2024, the Oregon Secretary of State said there were 755,756 voters who had been automatically registered by the state using DMV’s database. If the rate of one record out of 35 applies throughout that population of voters, there would be 21,907 registered voters for whom DMV’s database has no proof of citizenship. It is unlawful under state and federal law for a non-citizen to register to vote, and to vote.

Chicago-based accounting firm Baker Tilly conducted the audit at the request of Governor Tina Kotek in the aftermath of the state’s disclosure in September 2024 it had registered hundreds of voters without proof of citizenship via its automatic voter registration program, which uses DMV transactions to register voters without their consent. The maximum amount the state was authorized to pay Baker Tilly for performing the audit was $150,000.

The audit is generally congratulatory of the state’s efforts to improve its processes in the wake of last year’s announcement it had registered as voters individuals who may not have provided proof of U.S. Citizenship. The finding that one out of 35 records identified as eligible for voter registration lacked such proof was the major exception, with auditors deeming the problem of “High” risk.

According to the audit, DMV designates an individual as having presented proof of citizenship by marking the individual’s database record with a “C.” DMV sends data about individuals who have a transaction with the DMV and are marked “C” to the Oregon Secretary of State to register the person to vote, or to update the voter’s information, such as address, as submitted in the DMV transaction.

Auditors scrutinized 35 transactions between January 1, 2024, and May 22, 2025, involving individuals marked “C.” Three of those 35 transactions lacked proof of citizenship in the database. Two of the affected individuals had presented proof of citizenship previously to DMV, which proof was not included in the database.

One individual had “no proof documentation was noted within the” database.
”This C-Citizen assignment is not supported by any provided documentation or records,” the auditors wrote.

Auditors chalked the error up to the failure of DMV to transfer proof of citizenship from its older (“legacy”) database to its current database.

Reliance on legacy citizenship records introduces a risk that inaccurate or unsupported “C-Citizen” designations may persist in the system. This could result in ineligible individuals being automatically registered to vote and only discovered if/when future transactions reveal non-citizen status based on documents presented [to DMV].

The auditors then offered their thoughts on whether any of this matters:

One of thirty-five (2.8%) sampled transactions had an unsupported “C-Citizen” designation. Although the number of potentially ineligible individuals being automatically registered to vote is likely too small to affect the outcome of an election, the existence of such cases poses a moderate reputational and compliance risk. It may undermine public trust in the voter registration process and expose the agency to increased scrutiny.

An error rate of 2.8% among the 755,756 voters registered by DMV via automatic voter registration would result in an error rate of among all Oregon’s 3,025,132 registered voters as of September 2024 results in an error rate of 0.7% among all registered voters, assuming no additional citizenship designation errors among motor voter and other voters.

The Secretary of State’s office says there were 25 elections in Oregon’s May 2025 special district election that triggered an automatic recount because the margin was less than 0.2%. All of those elections and presumably quite a few more would likewise be within the 0.7% citizenship potential error rate.

The hard-fought 2024 House District 22 race, in which Democrat Lesly Munoz defeated Republican incumbent Tracy Cramer to give Democrats a tax-hiking supermajority in the House was decided by a margin of 0.77%, just outside the rough potential error margin.

The audit was released last week, but I just got around to reading it today. KOIN TV quoted Kotek as saying the following regarding the audit: “I take any error that undermines Oregonians’ confidence in their election system incredibly seriously . . . From the moment the errors were caught, I committed to ongoing accountability and continual improvement of the Oregon Motor Voter program. This report underscores the strength of that work.”

The 2024 revelation that Oregon had registered individuals to vote without proof of citizenship - that number stands at more than 1,700 today, apart from errors identified in the audit - was identified by a nonprofit automatic voter registration nonprofit. Kotek originally told Oregonians the problem “was discovered because the Oregon DMV and the secretary of state were doing their due diligence ahead of the 2024 election.”

That sentiment, contradicted by later admissions the state was informed of the errors by an outside advocacy group, was repeated in the talking points of a lobbyist for that group following an emergency top staff conference call, including representatives from the advocacy group, the day after news broke of the errors last September.

Auditors looking at the separate group of troubled voter records called for DMV to improve its documentation of citizenship status for individuals marked “C.” DMV indicates in the audit it will adopt those suggestions.