Oregon election system faces scrutiny as state moves to address 800,000 inactive voters: ‘Astounding’

Oregon election officials are set to begin removing hundreds of thousands of inactive voters from the state’s registration rolls, a move that comes after years of inaction, mounting public pressure, and lawsuits filed against the state in recent months.

Oregon's Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read, in a press release Friday, outlined two new directives he said will "restart" the "routine cleanup of outdated, inactive voter registration records" in accordance with state law to address the roughly 800,000 inactive voter records that are being maintained by election officials.

The first directive orders counties to immediately cancel long-inactive voter registrations that already met the legal requirements for removal before 2017. These are registrations where election mail was returned as undeliverable, voters failed to respond to official notices, and they did not participate in multiple federal elections. State officials estimate roughly 160,000 registrations fall into this category and should have been removed years ago.

The second directive changes how the state handles inactive voters going forward. It updates the language on voter confirmation cards to clearly warn voters that their registrations will be canceled if they do not respond or vote within the required time frame. State officials say this step restores a process that allows routine cleanup of inactive registrations under federal law.

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Together, the directives are designed to address a backlog of inactive records and restart regular voter-roll maintenance after Oregon paused removals in 2017. 

"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," Read said. "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."

State officials acknowledge there are about 800,000 inactive registrations total, roughly 20% of Oregon’s voter rolls, though they stress multiple times in the press release that inactive voters do not currently receive ballots, saying at one point, "again, none of the individuals associated with these records will receive ballots, and these inactive records have no impact on Oregon elections."

Being marked "inactive" in Oregon means you’re still listed as a registered voter, but you aren’t receiving ballot mail from the state until you reactivate your registration.

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However, inactive voters are still counted in the official voter roll totals, included in public records, and many experts have made the case that accurate rolls should reflect real, current voters, not people who moved years ago or can’t be located. Leaving outdated records in place increases the risk of mistakes, an expert on the subject told Fox News Digital. 

"First of all, it's astounding that they haven't been removing anybody from the voter force in almost a decade because this is very basic 101 level election administration," said Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project. 

Snead explained that voter rolls naturally change every year as people move, die, lose eligibility due to felony convictions, or leave the state, creating constant churn that must be managed. When states fail to keep up, Snead says, voter rolls become bloated and outdated, making elections harder to administer and increasing the risk of errors and abuse.

Snead emphasized that the problem is especially serious in mail-in voting states like Oregon. He argues that automatically mailing ballots while failing to routinely clean voter rolls makes it more likely that ballots will be sent to people who are no longer eligible, including those who have moved or died. Even if state officials say inactive voters don’t receive ballots, Snead says Oregon’s recent administrative failures, including the suspension of its automatic voter registration program in 2024 after non-citizens were mistakenly registered, justify skepticism about whether safeguards are consistently working as claimed.

"I think there's clearly a degree of skepticism that's warranted, and I think that it really speaks to the need to always be focused on the basics of election administration," Snead said. "Cleaning of the vote rolls is really one of the most foundational, important things that a secretary of state should be doing."

Oregon has been slapped with two lawsuits in recent months related to its handling of voter rolls, from Judicial Watch as well as Trump’s Department of Justice, and Snead suspects the timing of the secretary of state’s announcement is "probably to some degree" related to that. 

"There's an almost pathological resistance on the left to cleaning up the voter rolls, they call it voter purge, and they say that this is going to disenfranchise voters," Snead said. "We've heard of all of the various statements. You know, lots of different ways and lots of different examples. But then when you actually bring litigation over this, sometimes that forces their hand."

Cleaning up voter rolls has become an increasingly politicized issue in recent years, with Republicans pushing for more oversight in the name of election integrity and Democrats accusing Republicans of attempting to "disenfranchise" voters. 

"Democrats support normal list maintenance and reasonable efforts to keep voter rolls up to date and in compliance with federal law," DNC Spokesperson Albert Fujii told Fox News Digital. "The contrast could not be clearer: Donald Trump and the Republican Party are pushing aggressive voter purges to systematically disenfranchise eligible voters across the country, especially voters of color." 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, RNC National Press Secretary Kiersten Pels said, "Oregon's Democrat Secretary of State has presided over one of the most bloated voter rolls in the country, with more than 800,000 inactive registrations."

"Democratic states have allowed their voter rolls to spiral out of control, especially in mail-in voting systems like Oregon’s. The RNC is taking action nationwide to ensure states are cleaning their voter rolls as required by law."