Court: Some offices needn’t register voters
California has one of the nation’s highest voterregistration rates, but disabilityrights advocates say the state is violating a legal duty to register voters in offices serving disabled students and the elderly, who have less access than others to motorvoter signups. A state appeals court disagrees.
While the populations served by those offices are less likely than others to apply for drivers’ licenses, which would entitle them to immediate voter registration, they are not the types of public agencies required by law to have their own registration sites, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said Tuesday.
Federal law requires states to establish voterregistration centers in offices that provide either “public assistance” or “statefunded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities.”
After advocacy groups said California was not fully complying with the law, thenSecretary of State Alex Padilla agreed in 2018 to set up registration sites in some county welfare departments, the state Office for Services to the Blind, and offices serving disabled students in community colleges. At a judge’s orders, Padilla added more welfare offices and student financial aid centers as registration sites in 2019.
But he declined to install registration sites at “special education” offices serving students with disabilities, or at the 33 Area Agencies on Aging, nonprofits commissioned by the state to deliver meals and provide other services to elderly people who need them. The court said neither one was the type of office mandated by federal law to register voters.
Some of the education sites are at public schools, and all are at locations where federal law allows a state to decide whether to provide voter registration, Justice Rebecca Wiseman said in the 30 ruling, which upheld a judge’s decision. She said the Area Agencies on Aging may provide funding for meal delivery and similar programs but lack the “direct contact” with the elderly that the law requires for mandatory voter sites.
California had nearly 88% of its eligible voters registered for the November election, its highest total in 80 years, the secretary of state’s office said. The total of 22 million registered voters was an increase of more than 2.6 million over November 2016. The office is now headed by Shirley Weber, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom after he chose Padilla to succeed Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. Senate.
Advocacy groups could appeal to the state Supreme Court. Attorney Fred Nisen of Disability Rights Advocates said the ruling was disappointing but “voter registration opportunities for people on public assistance and people with disabilities have been greatly expanded” because of the court case and cooperation from state election officials.