Oregon to Resume Routine Cleanup of Outdated, Inactive Voter Registration Records with New Directives from Secretary of State Tobias Read

Today, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read announced two new directives for local elections officials to restart routine cleanup of outdated, inactive voter registration records, following the process outlined by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and Oregon law (ORS 247.563).

“These directives are about cleaning up old data that’s no longer in use so Oregonians can be confident that our voter records are up to date,” said Secretary Read. “From day one, our goal was clear: run elections that are secure, fair, and accurate. This move will strengthen our voter rolls and reinforce public trust in our elections.”

ACTIVE vs. INACTIVE VOTERS:

An "active” voter is anyone with an up-to-date voter registration, even if they have not cast a ballot in a recent election. There are more than 3 million active voters in Oregon.

A record is moved to “inactive” status when elections officials identify that a registration is potentially out-of-date, for example: their election mail is returned as undeliverable. Oregonians will receive notification if their record is inactivated, and they must take action to re-activate their record and receive a ballot.

Inactive voters do not receive ballots.

There are approximately 800,000 inactive voter records still being maintained by elections officials. This data is separate from Oregon’s active voter list and not included in the 3 million active voter total. Neither of these directives will impact Oregon’s 3 million active voters. This is a great reminder for Oregonians to check their voter registration status at oregonvotes.gov/myvote.

FIRST DIRECTIVE:

Under the first directive, county elections officials will cancel inactive voter registrations that already met federal and state standards for removal before July 20, 2017. Because their registrations were inactive, no ballots were sent to these individuals between 2017 and today.

• These records meet the following conditions:
• Mail from local elections officials to these individuals was returned as undeliverable.
• These individuals were sent voter confirmation cards – a notice, by forwardable mail, warning them their voter registrations were subject to cancelation if they did not vote or update their registration information between receiving that notice and the next two federal general elections.
• There was no response to the voter confirmation card.

This type of list maintenance is standard practice across the country and was part of Oregon’s normal process until July 20, 2017, when the cancelation language was removed from voter confirmation cards. That language removal also meant that elections officials could not cancel records due to the requirements of NVRA and Oregon law, so those records remained on the rolls as inactive.

None of the individuals associated with these records voted between the time their record was scheduled for cancelation and today; and the presence of these records on Oregon’s voter rolls has not impacted any election.

However, this did create a backlog of outdated records that now need to be responsibly cleaned up.

Approximately 160,000 inactive records that already meet the federal and state standards for cancellation will be removed. The Secretary of State’s office will provide step-by-step instructions to counties to ensure this work is done consistently, lawfully, and transparently statewide.

SECOND DIRECTIVE:

Under the second directive, the Secretary of State will work with county election officials to update their voter confirmation cards to include a notification that voter registrations are subject to cancelation if individuals do not act before two general federal elections have occurred.

Once these new voter confirmation cards are implemented, inactive voter registrations that qualify for cancelation under NVRA and Oregon law will once again be regularly removed from the rolls.

After the initial 160,000 inactive records are processed for cancelation, there will be approximately 640,000 inactive voter records left on file. These records currently do not meet the federal and state standards for cancelation. These records will be addressed by future directives. Again, none of the individuals associated with these records will receive ballots, and these inactive records have no impact on Oregon elections