Sec State skips noncitizen voting hearing

Staff confirms no safeguards were in place to prevent registration of noncitizens.

Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade visiting Multnomah County clerk’s office, not testifying to lawmakers.

Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade skipped this morning’s Democrat-convened oversight hearing into her office’s illegal registration of 1,259 noncitizens as voters this morning, instead posting on social media about a visit she paid to a county clerk’s office.

The hearing convened at 11:30 am in Salem; at 11:12 am, the Secretary of State’s X account quoted Griffin-Valade, “Great to spend time with our local elections officials across Oregon. It's people like Tim in Multnomah County who make our democracy work!"

In Griffin-Valade’s stead, her chief of staff Ben Morris and Elections Division director Molly Woon, former deputy director of the Democratic Party of Oregon, joined Oregon Department of Transportation staff in answering lawmakers’ questions about the unlawful voter registrations, which the agencies attribute to a data entry error. The story has received national attention since it broke earlier this month.

ODOT staff testified the agency, which provides information about new driver license applicants to the Secretary of State’s office so they can be automatically registered to vote, first learned about the registration of noncitizens from an analysis it undertook upon receiving a “general inquiry” from automatic voter registration advocacy group The Institute for Responsive Government.

Oregon Roundup first broke the news that The Institute for Responsive Government is part of the massive left-wing dark money network New Direction and managed by progressive mega-consultants Arabella Advisors. During today’s hearing, DMV director Amy Joyce told lawmakers she didn’t “think it matters” what group, “some good government nonprofit” lodged the inquiry, before consulting her notes and offering the name of the organization.

Witnesses confirmed that there were no double-check safeguards in place at ODOT or Secretary of State to ensure noncitizens were not registered to vote via Oregon’s aggressive automatic voter registration program before the story broke. They said there are now safeguards.

Elections director Woon told lawmakers her office would refer the nine noncitizens who actually cast ballots to the Oregon Department of Justice for investigation, if further analysis shows they voted while not citizens. It is a felony in Oregon to falsely attest to citizenship status when signing a statement included on all Oregon ballot envelopes. Woon previously told The Oregonian the people who had been registered while noncitizens had “done nothing wrong.”

Griffin-Valade was appointed by Governor Tina Kotek to replace disgraced former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan after Fagan resigned following disclosure that she had inked a $10,000-per-month consulting deal with a cannabis company while her office was conducting an audit critical of the state’s enforcement of cannabis laws.

Before her appointment, Griffin-Valade served as auditor for the City of Portland. She also authored novels, including her debut Dead Point, about a woman living in eastern Oregon. At one point in the novel, the protagonist, a gun pointed at her, exclaims, “Sh*t. Who was the dumb f*ck now?”