Oregon Secretary of State Refuses to Give Trump Administration Sensitive Voter Details Amid DOJ Pressure

Oregon’s Secretary of State (SoS) has refused to provide President Donald Trump’s administration lawyers with personal information about state voters.

Lawyers Told They Can Obtain a Copy of Public Records Available to Anyone for $500

Instead, SoS Tobias Read told them that they can pay $500 after filling out an online request form to obtain an electronic copy of public records, available to anyone who pays the fee.

However, that record does not provide personal and confidential information such as the full date of birth, partial Social Security number, and driver’s license number, all of which are demanded by the U.S. Department of Justice lawyers and all of which is needed to determine voting eligibility.

Apart from names and addresses, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael E. Gates, and acting chief of the Department of Justice’s voting division, Maureen Riordan, also demanded the voting history of non-citizens removed from the Oregon voter roll since 2022.

The SoS says there is nothing in federal or state law that sanctions the release of private and confidential information concerning Oregon citizens, and doing so would be a violation of federal and state law.

A furor arose last year after the Oregon DMV mistakenly registered in excess of 1,500 non-citizens via its ‘motor voter’ registration program. However, state officials said only five of those registered voted in the election.

A federal survey is conducted every two years in all U.S. states to update records of the number of voters on the rolls, and those removed from the rolls each two-year period.

The Department of Justice lawyers referred to the 2024 survey completed by Oregon, in which 3.6% of voters had been removed from the roll compared to 9.1%, the national average. Oregon had removed 4,417 voters who did not respond to mailed confirmation notices after failing to vote in two federal elections.

This, claimed the lawyers, was the lowest number of voters of any state who answered that survey question.

Tobias Read only took office as SoS in January 2025  and confirms that he has been working to standardize and improve the database entry system.