What could possibly go wrong?
Sacramento Bee: In a bid to improve voter turnout in California elections, Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed legislation to automatically register to vote anyone who has a driver’s license or state identification card. The measure was pushed by Democrats, whose candidates and causes typically benefit from higher turnout elections.
Assembly Bill 1461, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, will require the state to register adults to vote when they get or renew a driver’s license, unless they opt out. It will make California only the second state, after Oregon, to proactively register people to vote unless they decline.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla
The California legislation was a priority of Secretary of State Alex Padilla and followed the state’s record-low turnout in last year’s elections. “In a free society, the right to vote is fundamental,” Padilla said in a statement after Brown announced signing the bill. “We do not have to opt-in to other rights, such as free speech or due process. The right to vote should be no different.”
Democrats said the measure would increase the ranks of people – particularly the young, poor and non-white – engaged in the political process. Republicans mostly opposed the measure. They warned it risked allowing people eligible to get driver licenses, but who are non-citizens and ineligible to vote, to register and cast fraudulent ballots.
Democratic lawmakers countered that the bill included protections to prevent that from happening.
In November, only 42.2 percent of voters showed up, the lowest participation in a general election since World War II, according to a committee analysis of the measure. The turnout rate reflected just 31 percent of the state population eligible to vote, including an estimated 7 million Californians not registered.
“Our democracy depends on the true participation of the populace,” state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, said during a floor debate last month.
The measure sought to build upon the federal Motor Voter Law, which required voter registration forms to be available at motor vehicle agencies. More than 20 years later, though, experts said the paper-based law’s impact has been spotty, with few states able to detail how their agencies are helping people register to vote or update their registrations.
In Oregon, an automatic registration law took effect earlier this year, with full implementation due in January. Election officials automatically register people to vote when the state’s motor vehicle agency relays information that the people are eligible. People can apply to opt out.
“I just think we’re getting the cart before the horse,” state Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, said last month.
Under the law, automatic voter registration would not take place until the state’s long-awaited voter database, VoteCal, is up and running; there is a system in place to protect the transfer of non-citizen information; and money has been appropriated by the Legislature.
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