Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Oregon state’s motor-voter automatic registration officials admitted last month that the DMV erroneously registered 1,259 people to vote who were not citizens and were therefore ineligible to vote. (Officials say just nine of the 1,259 actually may have voted.)

On Monday afternoon, the DMV said it had identified a total of 302 more people who were erroneously added to voter rolls. That total includes 123 people registered under an erroneous policy identified earlier; 1 person who was identified when he came in to exchange an out-of-state license for an Oregon license; and, 178 people born in American Samoa, who were added to the rolls because of an error described below.

On Thursday Oct. 3, weekly newspaper Willamette Week reports it asked the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Oregon Driver & Motor Vehicle Services about the manual DMV uses to determine whether people who seek new drivers licenses or license renewals should be automatically added to the voter rolls, as Oregon’s Motor Voter Law allows.

Specifically, they were asked about a section of the manual that deals with people born in U.S. territories.

Here’s what that section says:

“Birth documents issued by the U.S. Territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands are acceptable as proof of U.S. citizenship.”

But part of that statement in the DMV manual is factually incorrect.

“Persons born in American Samoa and Swains Island [part of American Samoa] are generally considered nationals but not citizens of the United States,” according to the U.S. Custom and Immigration Services.

On Friday afternoon, Dept. of Transportation spokesman Kevin Glenn acknowledged the error.

“DMV was not aware of this issue and we appreciate you bringing it to our attention,” Glenn said in an email at 1:18 pm on Oct. 4.

“From what we understand at this time, residents of American Samoa can have a U.S. passport but are not eligible to vote in some elections. We will include this in our continued data integrity analysis and will provide updates.”

As part of DMV’s report yesterday, DMV administrator Amy Joyce apologized for her agency’s errors.

“Two weeks ago, we believed we had all of the information to project confidence that we understood and had reviewed all records at risk of error,” Joyce said. “We have since learned this confidence was misplaced based on new information outlined in this announcement and after-action report and for this, we are sorry.”

Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, the state’s top elections officer, said today she doesn’t think the newly discovered errors will affect next month’s voting.

“Thanks to the swift action of elections officials, I have full confidence that these new errors will not impact the 2024 election,” Griffin-Valade said. Her agency posted an FAQ page with more details about the situation.

Gov. Tina Kotek, who as the state’s top executive, oversees ODOT, says she and Griffin-Valade have paused automatic voter registration as of Sept. 30 and ordered an outside audit of the program. The Department of Administrative Services, which also reports to Kotek, will hire an independent auditing firm, which Kotek said will design the scope of the review.