Election chief touted voter citizen verification via fed program

Oregon avoids broad voter citizenship verification, but Molly Woon suggested using system used by Georgia as a "stopgap measure" as state scrambled in wake of disclosure it registered non-citizens

Oregon Elections Director Molly Woon

Oregon’s Elections Director Molly Woon suggested the state use a federal online citizenship verification tool the day news broke the state’s motor voter system had unlawfully registered noncitizens to vote, an email obtained by Oregon Roundup via public records request shows.

Aside from trying to define the scope of registration of non-citizens via motor voter under recent media scrutiny, Oregon has not undertaken to verify the citizenship of the vast majority of people registered to vote in the state. Oregon and federal law require a person be a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote.

The email, bearing the subject “Verification” and sent at 9:35 pm Friday, September 13, 2024, to Governor Tina Kotek’s communications director Elisabeth Shepard and Department of Motor Vehicles administrator Amy Joyce, attached a PowerPoint presentation about Georgia’s use of a federal citizenship verification tool called SAVE to verify the citizenship status of people registering to vote in that state.

In her email accompanying the presentation, Woon wrote,

“Share as you see fit. Could be a stopgap resource, if needed. I can easily get more information.”

The PowerPoint presentation, prepared by the Georgia Secretary of State Elections Division and bearing the date July 25, 2024, describes how Georgia uses the SAVE system to verify citizenship:

If the SAVE System indicates that someone is now a US Citizen, then the record gets moved from Pending Citizenship status to Active status.

If the SAVE System does not indicate that someone is a US Citizen, then the record remains in Pending Citizenship status indefinitely.

SAVE stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, an online service provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security. The SAVE website describes the service:

SAVE is a unique service for immigration status verification. SAVE uses information from more than 100 million records contained in federal databases to electronically verify an applicant’s immigration status. Typically, SAVE returns the results in just a few seconds to help federal, state and local benefit-granting agencies make determinations for eligibility of their benefit applicants.

As the name suggests, SAVE is marketed primarily to state and local benefit-providing agencies. According to the PowerPoint forwarded by Woon, Georgia uses the SAVE system for voter citizenship verification.

Friday, I emailed Laura Kerns, spokesperson for Oregon Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade with the following questions about Woon’s email:

1. Has Sec State’s office used SAVE at any time, and if so in what capacity and when?

2. Is Sec State or Oregon more broadly party to any memorandum of understanding with any federal agency to use SAVE? If so, are you able to provide a copy?

3. Anything other comment on this?

To Kerns’s credit, she responded to my email, an act rare among state agency spokespeople. She chose, however, to only respond to one portion of one of my questions:

“No, the Secretary of State’s Office does not use SAVE.” So, who knows if Oregon did use SAVE.

Oregon’s sanctuary state law prohibits state officials from assisting federal agencies in enforcing federal immigration laws, but specifically allows them to use of federal immigration information to assist in an investigation of potential violation of state law or to verify an applicant’s eligibility for benefits.

Democrats are poised to regain supermajority status in the Oregon House of Representatives, allowing them to raise taxes without any Republican votes, due to a narrow post-election-day margin in immigrant-rich House District 22. Coming on the heels of Oregon disclosing its unlawful registration of non-citizens, the outcome in the district has been closely watched.

Then-Secretary of State Shemia Fagan appointed Woon Elections Director in January 2023, after the previous director objected to Fagan ordering the inclusion of a fellow Democrat’s voter pamphlet statement even though the statement was filed after the deadline established by Oregon law. Woon previously worked as the deputy director of the Democratic Party of Oregon.

Woon appeared in a video produced by a pro-automatic voter registration group over the summer saying she thinks “it is really unfortunate if someone is prevented from getting a ballot for any reason whatsoever.”

Governor Tina Kotek “paused” automatic motor voter registration pending the outcome of an audit of that program following disclosure it registered non-citizens to vote. Oregon, however, appears to have no plans to review the citizenship of registered voters generally, or to review any potential effect of non-citizen voting in House District 22.

The state only learned its motor voter system unlawfully registered non-citizens because of a call from a left-leaning nonprofit that advocates Oregon-style automatic voter registration. Shepard, from the Governor’s Office, scheduled an emergency briefing from that nonprofit for the day after Woon’s email suggesting the state use SAVE.