Why Register Voters Automatically?

Ari L. NoonanNews

Assemblyperson Lorena Gonzalez. Photo: SF Examiner

Second in a series. 

Re: “Ready or Not, Time to Register Voters Automatically?”  

Two Democrats, new to their offices, have set out to chop down the 31 percent of eligible Californians who have declined to register to vote.

San Diego Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and Secretary of State Alex Padilla introduced their plan – to forward the data of drivers certified by the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to voter registration authorities — to the state Legislature last week.

Of 24.4 million eligible Californians, 7 million are not registered to vote.

Question: Why have they undertaken this campaign?

Don’t politicians prefer informed voters, those who register themselves without being lured? Those who are informed rather than a raw number?

Evan McLaughlin, Ms. Gonzalez’s press deputy, stepped up to respond.

“The goal of the bill,” said Mr. McLaughlin, “is to increase participation by cutting down an obstacle to the ballot box for the 7 million who are not registered.”

Is the objective to grow the numbers or to draw informed voters?

“The Constitution says citizens have a right to vote,” the spokesperson said. “There has not been a test that has been upheld in court since the days of Jim Crow that qualify that with some kind of measurement about whether a person is informed.”

But wouldn’t Assemblyperson Gonzalez prefer to attract informed voters?

“The bill is not about compulsory voting, as you see in other countries,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “This is just to provide universal registration so that people who are informed enough to make a decision will, of their own volition, go to a polling place and vote.”

(To be continued)