Does The Dmv Automatically Register You To Vote

In April 2018, a new law will permit Californians to automatically register to vote when they renew their driver'due south license.

It'due south intended to bolster registration in a country where voter turnout has lagged.

A slew of conservative websites, yet, accept seized on the law, dubbed the California New Motor Voter Program, to brand the claim this calendar week that information technology will register undocumented immigrants to vote.

They cite a separate law, AB lx, that allows undocumented Californians to apply for and obtain a land driver'due south license, equally alleged proof.

This World Cyberspace Daily headline on Jan. 21, 2018 sparked the recent claims: "California To Annals Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically."

Shortly afterward it was published, similar allegations were fabricated past The New American, FoxNews.com and bourgeois commentators Ann Coulter and Blitz Limbaugh.

This isn't the showtime wave of commentary on the topic. Like statements were fabricated when California passed the Motor Voter program in 2015.

But considering the claims popped upward again this week, it's time to accept another wait at the California laws in question and the safeguards state officials say are in identify.

We'll also place a rating on the claim past Globe Net Daily.

Background on the laws

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB lx in 2013, making California the 10th state to permit driver licenses for people in the state illegally. The goal was to increment public safety and reduce penalties for undocumented immigrants who drive. Every bit of June 2017, the state Department of Motor Vehicles had issued more than 900,000 of the licenses.

In 2015, Brown signed the New Motor Voter police force. By Apr, information technology will automatically register DMV customers to vote when they renew or obtain a driver's license or fill out change of address forms, unless the client opts-out.

Under the law, the DMV would electronically send information for those eligible to register to vote -- which does not include undocumented residents -- to the California Secretary of Land'southward Office. That office would, in turn, verify name and citizenship data. A spokesman for that office did non respond to requests for comment this calendar week.

In the by, however, Secretary of Land Alex Padilla has pledged the new system volition be an improvement over the existing one.

"Automatic voter registration is actually a more secure manner of doing things," Padilla told the Huffington Mail service in 2015. Potential voters "have to demonstrate proof of historic period, the vast bulk of time people are showing a birth certificate or a passport, which too reflects citizenship. That's arguably more secure than someone checking a box under penalty of perjury."

"Completely inaccurate" claims

Jessica Gonzalez, spokeswoman with the California DMV, said she'southward contacted several of the websites making what she chosen "completely inaccurate" claims and asked for corrections. I, the Daily Mail service, had pulled down its story, another updated its article, while she said Fox News did not immediately correct its article.

"Undocumented Californians are not eligible to register to vote at the DMV," Gonzalez told PolitiFact California. "And we have programming measures in identify to prevent that from occurring."

At DMV field offices, Gonzalez said, technicians volition not be able to key in any voting information for undocumented customers seeking AB 60 license renewals.

As soon every bit a technician types in AB 60, the voter information section automatically gets "greyed out" and tin't exist typed into and can't be bypassed, the spokeswoman said. She added that the same safeguards are in place for online and post renewals.

"The (mail) class won't even have the voter information questions on it, so they won't be able to register to vote," Gonzalez said.

"It's actually interesting how quickly false data spreads," she continued, "and how hard it is to go the correct information out there to Californians that really need to know this information."

A representative for World Cyberspace Daily could not be reached for comment.

Several fact-checking websites, from Snopes.com to The Weekly Standard, a conservative publication, examined the topic this week.

The Weekly Standard concluded "there is zero evidence to support that ludicrous claim."

Our ruling

Conservative news websites and commentators claimed California plans to register undocumented immigrants to vote.

This isn't the beginning time such unsubstantiated claims take been made. But the recent spat was sparked past the World Net Daily headline: "California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically."

In reality, the California law that goes into effect in Apr 2018 will automatically register simply those eligible to vote when they renew or obtain a driver's license. Undocumented immigrants are excluded. The law does aught to change the federal requirement that one must exist a U.Southward. citizen to register to vote.

State officials said safeguards are already in place to prevent state DMV workers from typing in whatever voter information for AB 60 license holders. The state allows unauthorized immigrants to obtain a driver'southward license, but explicitly excludes that group from the automated voter registration.

The allegations on this topic are recycled. And they're notwithstanding blatantly untrue.

We rate Globe Net Daily'due south claim Pants On Fire.

PANTS ON Burn – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.

UPDATE: Later on nosotros published our fact check, World Net Daily published a separate article proverb a spokeswoman for the California Section of Motor Vehicles "cleared upward an inaccuracy in WND's initial study." It said the spokeswoman explained that California'south licenses for undocumented immigrants "are non eligible for the new voter registration organisation." As of Jan. 29, 2018, World Net Daily had not updated its original report with this information.