Motor voter law coming in April, state lawyer says
Californians who apply for driver’s licenses or state ID cards will be automatically registered to vote starting in April unless they opt out, a state lawyer said in court Thursday.
Deputy Attorney General Paul Stein told a federal magistrate that the longawaited implementation of the state’s “new motor voter law” was grounds for dismissing a suit by voting-rights advocates who objected to California’s requirement that drivers who renew their licenses by mail each year must fill out a separate form to register to vote.
The automatic registration procedure, which was approved by state lawmakers in 2015, ”goes above and beyond what (federal law) requires” and will take effect before the June 2018 primary election, Stein said. “There’s no need for a court order.”
But the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Michael Risher of the American Civil Liberties Union, said they weren’t prepared to drop their case, at least without “some sort of enforcement mechanism” for the April implementation. U.S. Magistrate Laurel Beeler of San Francisco asked the two sides to try to work out an agreement and said she would rule next week on whether the suit could continue.
Secretary of State Alex
Padilla’s office, which sponsored the 2015 legislation, confirmed Wednesday that the law will take effect in April.
Advocates led by the League of Women Voters filed the suit in May, saying the 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires states to allow residents to sign up to vote when they apply to renew their driver’s licenses or state identification cards.
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles provides a single signup form for both driving and voting to people who apply in person or online. But the suit noted that the more than 1 million mail-in driver’s license applicants each year must fill out a separate form to register to vote and mail it back to a separate office.
California, the suit said, ranks near the bottom of states in registration rates, with more than 5.5 million eligible voters unregistered.
Stein argued that the federal law required only that motorists be allowed to register to vote “simultaneously” and doesn’t prohibit states from using separate forms or different mailing addresses.
Beeler agreed that the law appears to allow separate forms. But she said the DMV could ease the burden by taking personal identification information already printed on license renewal applications and reprinting it on voter registration forms, so that applicants would only have to sign their names.