A California law, which goes into effect on April 1, automatically registers people to vote when they apply for a new driver’s license or new state identification card.
The Golden State permits anyone who claims to be in the country legally, even without proof, to obtain a license. So, logically, I anticipate that California could be getting a whole, new crop of illegal immigrant voters.
A new law in California that goes into effect this spring will automatically register people to vote – including immigrants who are in the country illegally.In 2015, the state passed a law called the California New Motor Voter Act to increase voter rolls by simplifying the process to register to vote.The legislation, which goes into effect April 1, will automatically register people who apply for a new driver’s license or new state ID at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The new rules were created in response to a lawsuit claiming it was too challenging to fill out both a driver’s license application and voter registration form (despite the fact millions of Californians have done so for many, many years).
The settlement reached Jan. 10 ends eight months of litigation over California’s alleged violations of the National Voting Rights Act of 1993.The League of Women Voters and three other groups sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Secretary of State’s Office in May 2017, claiming the state burdens would-be voters by making them fill out the same information on two separate forms to register to vote.“We are very pleased that Californians will have easier access to voter registration,” said Jeremiah Levine, an attorney with Morrison Foerster who represented the voting rights groups. “We are especially satisfied that changes will be made before California’s statewide and federal primary elections.”The state agreed to roll out a new program that will automatically register driver’s license applicants to vote unless they opt out. The program is part of AB 1461, dubbed the California New Motor Voter Act. Signed into law in October 2015, the new statute requires the DMV to forward records for all eligible applicants to the Secretary of State’s Office for registration unless those applicants elect not to register to vote.
Paired with the proposal to hike the corporate tax rate for the state, this new measure should incentivize Californians who are legal residents…to obtain new licenses in other states after they relocate.
Over 800,000 illegal immigrants had applied for driver’s licenses in California as of last April. Those who acquired these priceless gems of identification included a Mexican man living in the U.S. illegally who allegedly used his job as an Uber driver to rape and rob 4 young women in this state.
Alfonso Alarcon-Nunez drove women to their homes, assaulted them, and stole property including cellphones, computers and jewelry, officials said. He collected his fare payments through the smartphone app Venmo to disguise his identity and his Uber records.DNA evidence helped lead detectives to Alarcon-Nunez, who was arrested at his Santa Maria home last week, San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow said at a news conference.The alleged crimes occurred over four weeks starting in mid-December in San Luis Obispo, a city of about 45,000 that is home to California Polytechnic State University. Alarcon-Nunez’s victims are between 19 and 22 and three were drunk at the time of the crimes, Dow said.
Linda Paine, a co-founder of the nonpartisan Election Integrity Project of California who has been monitoring the situation, is deeply troubled by the development.
…[H]er organization has visited DMV offices to observe how workers handle undocumented immigrants. She said the visits, and meetings with state officials, left her with little confidence about any safeguards to prevent illegal voter registration.“There are thousands and thousands of DMV workers across our huge state,” Paine told Fox News. “They’re not all trained. There’s no actual protection to prevent noncitizens from being added to voter rolls. It’s not even that people who are ineligible want to be registered. They may not know that they have to select ‘Opt out.’”
Hopefully, a team of savvy, Constitution-embracing lawyers will find a way to challenge this horrendous law, because of the enormous potential to dilute the legal votes of Americans and push California further out of lock-step with the rest of the nation.
The New Motor Voter Act is a bad joke on the voting rights of California’s legal citizens.
Post title originally read: California’s “New Motor Voter Act” automatically registers illegal immigrants to vote. That title has been changed since publication.
Included in the article is a report from Fox News, which has since been updated. California’s DMV is not happy that changes to their program are being questioned.
California’s DMV provided the following clarification:
Undocumented Californians are not eligible to register to vote and DMV has programming measures to prevent that from occurring. One example is the technician is unable to enter information that would allow the undocumented customer to register. It is automatically greyed out and cannot be bypassed.The California DMV and the Secretary of State are working to implement AB 1461, the California New Motor Voter Program, which is intended to increase opportunities for voter registration for any applicant who is qualified to register to vote. That program will launch in April 2018 – no exact date yet.The New Motor Voter Program will automatically register customers to vote, if eligible, during driver license, ID card, or change of address transactions. A customer can choose to opt-out of the process.To be eligible to vote, you must be a U.S. citizen and a resident of California, 18 years old or older on Election day, not currently in state or federal prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony, and not prohibited from voting by a court because of metal [sic] incompetency. Again, undocumented Californians, those applying for a driver license under Assembly Bill 60 (AB 60) cannot register to vote.
Updated by Kemberlee Kaye at 5:40 PM.
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