A man uses a touchscreen at a DMV location. (Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr)
The Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division needs to do a better job translating its online web portal for people who don’t speak English and making sure customer data is secure, a mostly positive audit found.
The report released Wednesday by the Audits Division of the Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t address the DMV’s latest high-profile data issue: revelations that it wrongly sent information for 1,561 people who didn’t prove citizenship to election officials to automatically register them to vote. At least 10 of the incorrectly registered voters went on to vote, though election officials have since determined five of those 10 were citizens when they voted.
Gov. Tina Kotek ordered a pause to the automatic voter registration program until an independent external audit is completed. That report is expected by the end of the year.
The audit also didn’t address a May 2023 hack that put at risk personal information, including birthdates, addresses and driver’s license numbers, for approximately 3.5 million Oregonians. The hack of the file transfer service MOVEit affected more than 2,700 other agencies and organizations and more than 95 million individuals throughout the world.