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Nonaffiliated voters who want to vote for either a Democratic or Republican candidate in the May primary must change their registration by April 26.

(The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo)

The idea behind Oregon's new "motor voter" program, signed into law last year by Gov. Kate Brown, was all about removing barriers to voting, real or imagined. By tapping Oregon's Driver and Motor Vehicle Services database of people seeking driver's licenses or ID cards, the state could automatically add to the voter rolls those eligible Oregonians who had not previously registered.

According to the Oregon secretary of state's office, more than 24,500 new voters have been added since the program began less than three months ago -- far outperforming the typical 2,000-voter-a-month pace of the past. It would seem that "motor voter" is doing what backers wanted it to do: Enfranchising many who might not otherwise have bothered to register.

Except, there's one problem: Oregon's experiment to eliminate barriers is about to meet the immovable object that is Oregon's closed primary system.

More than 86 percent of the new voters added so far this year are registered as unaffiliated with any political party. That's the default setting in "motor voter" for those who don't return a mailer designating a party affiliation or indicating they want to be kept off voter rolls completely.

But under Oregon law, major political parties can restrict participation in their primaries to only those voters who are registered with their party. Both the state's Democratic and Republican parties have opted to keep their primaries closed in this way to outsiders. Such exclusivity affects not just races for state legislative positions but carry over to the presidential race as well.

That means that a nonaffiliated voter who may want to cast a ballot for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump in May's primary may not do so, because both candidates will appear only on their respective parties' ballots.

The irony that nearly all new registrants added under "motor voter" would be barred from voting in the most prominent races this May is not lost on those who run the program. Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins announced last week that elections officials are sending notices to all of the state's nearly 540,000 nonaffiliated voters reminding them that they cannot vote in the Democratic or Republican primary unless they change their voter registration to designate the appropriate party as their political affiliation. The deadline to submit a change for the May primary is April 26.

The notice also informs nonaffiliated voters that they can participate in the Independent Party's primary, which is not limited to declared Independents, without having to change their registration. However, they must request an Independent Party ballot from their county elections office.

As confusing as this all might be, at least Oregon makes changing registrations remarkably easy. Just go to www.oregonvotes.gov and click on "register to vote." It takes just a minute or so to fill out.

The secretary of state's announcement, however, does highlight a problem that officials will need to eventually address. Nonaffiliated voter registrations are surging nationally, not just in Oregon, and the state should recognize that closed primaries are cutting out hundreds of thousands of Oregonians who should not have to declare fealty to one party or another to simply cast their vote.

A previous effort to change the system tanked in 2014 when voters rejected Measure 90, which would have replaced the current primaries with a single nonpartisan primary that would send the top two candidates to the general election. Both the Democratic and Republican parties vehemently opposed the measure.

But if the state truly wants to give voters a voice, that means recognizing how the system is set up intentionally to keep them out. Cosmetic fixes like a failed legislative bill to prepay postage for ballots are nothing more than meaningless gestures. The real work requires the Democratic and Republican establishment to recognize that their rhetoric about eliminating barriers means nothing when they refuse to remake a system based on exclusion.

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board