[Editor’s Note: Ms. Moore is president of the Culver City Democratic Club.]
Democracy in California just took a huge leap forward. In October, Gov. Brown signed our state’s new motor voter program, a law that could put millions of unregistered Californians onto the voter rolls.
Co-authored by Democratic Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez, Luis Alejo and Kevin McCarty, and championed by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, the motor voter program requires the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to electronically enroll residents with a driver’s license or state identification card once they have been identified as eligible to vote.
Eligible Californians have the choice to opt out of being registered during a specific period of time. California joins Oregon as the second state in the nation to adopt a motor voter program.
Unlike Oregon’s law, however, California’s motor voter program is not a true automatic voter registration system. Residents still must confirm to the DMV eligibility, and they have the option to decline.
Neither state’s program is true universal automatic voter registration. The government registers every citizen at birth. The right to vote is activated at 18 (not having to interact with a specific agency) something other advanced democracies already do.
Still, with motor voter and our already-in-place online registration system, California is streamlining the way we vote by minimizing the need for filling out a paper form and saving money (and trees!) at the same time.
Gov. Brown also recently signed into law bills expanding same-day registration to the days leading up to Election Day, requiring most municipalities to align their local elections to coincide with state and federal elections in even-numbered years. The law also allows legal permanent residents who are 16 and 17 years of age to serve as poll workers.
All of these reforms aim to increase voter turnout, thereby strengthening democracy in California. The more people participate in the political process, the more equitably resources are shared and all our rights are better protected.
Unfortunately, in other states dominated by Republican legislatures, voting rights are being quickly rolled back through restrictive voter identification laws, cutbacks to early voting, and curtailing voter registration efforts. This is anti-democratic behavior.
But then that is the point: To keep disfavored groups (the poor, people of color) from accessing the benefits of citizenship.
Decades ago, California was a right-wing state — birthplace of the anti-tax movement, aggressive, tough on crime measures, and anti-immigrant sentiment. Demographic changes have rendered those attitudes far less popular.
We are undoing the damage done by the reactionaries in the past. With millions more Californians soon to be added to the voter rolls, the changes could be even more dramatic.
Ms. Moore may be contacted at president@culvercitydemocraticclub.com
