HARRISBURG – Auditor General Timothy L. DeFoor today released a performance audit of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Motor Voter process, which allows eligible citizens to apply to register to vote when they obtain or renew a driver’s license or ID card, saying the system works as intended but there needs to be better internal controls and security protocols in place.
“Pennsylvanians need to know the Motor Voter process works, but the internal controls and security protocols around it must improve,” Auditor General DeFoor said. “In the process of our audit, we determined that in one out of the 58 applications we identified for further review, PennDOT improperly allowed one non-U.S. citizen to apply to register to vote. The Motor Voter process worked as intended, but due to human error the driver’s license camera card had incorrect information about the individual’s citizenship. That is unacceptable.”
The audit’s objectives were to assess the Motor Voter process for compliance with state and federal laws and to determine whether it properly excluded non-citizens in voter registration application files sent to the Department of State (DOS). It covered a six-month period from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2024, during which more than 200,000 unique voter registration applications were transmitted by PennDOT to DOS. The audit also involved the Governor’s Office of Administration (OA), which provides technological support to the vendor-managed system used in the Motor Voter process.
Through data analysis, auditors identified 58 voter registration applications out of the more than 200,000, that required further review, including the one mishandled application. In that case, a manual data-entry error had omitted non-citizen status during the driver’s license application process. Auditor General DeFoor noted auditors did not review all of the more than 200,000 records because it would have taken years to complete and the findings in the audit, based on the objectives, would have been the same. The audit also found that PennDOT and OA did not implement appropriate user access controls to ensure that employees only have access to the functions of the vendor-managed system that are needed to perform their jobs.
The audit’s eight recommendations include three recommendations to PennDOT to strengthen safeguards against processing errors and to coordinate with DOS to ensure that the non-citizen was not registered to vote. It also offers three recommendations to PennDOT and two recommendations to OA to strengthen policies and procedures that control employee access to the system.
To review the full Pennsylvania Motor Voter performance audit report, visit the Department of the Auditor General online at www.paauditor.gov. Review other recent audits, sign up to be notified when new audits are released and learn more about the Department of the Auditor General online at www.PaAuditor.gov.
For a more detailed explanation of this audit, including a breakdown of the findings and recommendations, visit our Be Audit Smart guide.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Video and photo assets from the press conference announcing the audit results are available at PACast.com.
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Media Contact: April Hutcheson, 717-787-1381 or news@paauditor.gov