Can Illegal Immigrants With A License Register To Vote

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

It's intended to bolster registration in a state where voter turnout has lagged.

A slew of conservative websites, nonetheless, have seized on the law, dubbed the California New Motor Voter Program, to make the claim this week that it will register undocumented immigrants to vote.

They cite a dissever constabulary, AB 60, that allows undocumented Californians to apply for and obtain a state commuter's license, as alleged proof.

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

Shortly after it was published, like allegations were made by The New American, FoxNews.com and bourgeois commentators Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

This isn't the get-go wave of commentary on the topic. Similar statements were made when California passed the Motor Voter plan in 2015.

But considering the claims popped up again this calendar week, it's fourth dimension to take another await at the California laws in question and the safeguards state officials say are in place.

We'll also place a rating on the claim by World Internet Daily.

Background on the laws

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 60 in 2013, making California the tenth state to allow driver licenses for people in the state illegally. The goal was to increase public rubber and reduce penalties for undocumented immigrants who bulldoze. As of June 2017, the state Department of Motor Vehicles had issued more than 900,000 of the licenses.

In 2015, Chocolate-brown signed the New Motor Voter police force. By Apr, it will automatically register DMV customers to vote when they renew or obtain a commuter'southward license or fill out change of address forms, unless the client opts-out.

Nether the police force, the DMV would electronically transport information for those eligible to register to vote -- which does not include undocumented residents -- to the California Secretary of Land'southward Role. That office would, in turn, verify name and citizenship data. A spokesman for that office did not respond to requests for annotate this week.

In the past, however, Secretary of State Alex Padilla has pledged the new arrangement will be an comeback over the existing one.

"Automatic voter registration is actually a more secure mode of doing things," Padilla told the Huffington Post in 2015. Potential voters "take to demonstrate proof of historic period, the vast majority of fourth dimension people are showing a birth certificate or a passport, which besides reflects citizenship. That'southward arguably more secure than someone checking a box under penalty of perjury."

"Completely inaccurate" claims

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

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

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

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

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

"Information technology'southward really interesting how rapidly faux information spreads," she continued, "and how hard it is to become the correct information out there to Californians that really need to know this information."

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

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

The Weekly Standard ended "there is zero evidence to back up that ludicrous claim."

Our ruling

Bourgeois news websites and commentators claimed California plans to annals undocumented immigrants to vote.

This isn't the first time such unsubstantiated claims have been made. Merely the recent spat was sparked by the World Net Daily headline: "California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically."

In reality, the California law that goes into effect in April 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 be a U.Southward. citizen to register to vote.

Country officials said safeguards are already in place to foreclose state DMV workers from typing in any voter information for AB 60 license holders. The land allows unauthorized immigrants to obtain a commuter's license, just explicitly excludes that grouping from the automated voter registration.

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

We charge per unit World Net Daily'due south claim Pants On Fire.

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

UPDATE: After we published our fact check, Globe Internet Daily published a split article saying a spokeswoman for the California Section of Motor Vehicles "cleared up an inaccuracy in WND's initial report." It said the spokeswoman explained that California's licenses for undocumented immigrants "are non eligible for the new voter registration system." As of Jan. 29, 2018, Earth Cyberspace Daily had not updated its original study with this information.