The DMV has admitted that it registered non-citizens to vote. The latest blunder in the Motor Voter program involves improperly registering 15 hundred people.
Assemblyman Jim Patterson says the Motor Voter program should be put on hold.
"I am calling on the governor and calling on the secretary of state to immediately freeze the DMV's Motor voter operation until there's a thorough investigation."
Patterson says it doesn’t matter whether it was just an accident.
"I think it's time for management at the top level of the DMV to be changed. They have demonstrated that they cannot fix the problems that they have created."
He then went on to add:
"They shouldn't even be attempting it when they can't even register our cars properly."
The D-M-V said last month that it found more than 20 thousand voter registration errors. The agency says the latest goof-up has been fixed and that non-citizens have been scratched from voter rolls.
During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of State Alex Padilla also criticized the DMV.
“These mistakes from the DMV are totally unacceptable,” he told reporters. “It risks jeopardizing confidence in the electoral process which is why yesterday I called for an independent audit of the DMV’s technology and their practices…The DMV needs to get it together here real quick.”
Padilla said it's more that non-citizens who have been registered to vote. Those with a felony conviction also are ineligible.
“We are not talking about 1,500 non-citizens,” he said. “What we are talking about is 1,500 individuals who either did not attest to their eligibility and that could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s citizenship. Maybe it’s age. You are also not eligible to vote in California if you are on parole for a felony conviction (and) your parole has not been completed. There’s different reasons for not being eligible.”
Padilla added, “it’s the DMV that made the mistake,” he said. “I’ve gotten calls overnight that these are people who are not eligible but we're trying to register to vote. That is not the case. These are individuals who specifically told the DMV either I’m not eligible or would not confirm their eligibility and the DMV still mistakenly registered them.”