[LATIMES] Randall Marquis has lived in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, for 31 years, but he knew it was a mistake when he received a notice last month that said he was newly registered to vote. He may have a state driver’s license, but he’s a citizen of Canada.
"When I saw that card, I just threw it out," Marquis said. "I know I’m not going to vote. I’m not allowed to vote, it’s stupid that I should be registered to vote."
The Newport Beach resident, who has a green card and is married to a U.S. citizen, was one of some 1,500 people who the California Department of Motor Vehicles said on Monday were wrongly registered to vote between late April and late September. These errors, which included other non-citizens, are in addition to the roughly 23,000 registration mistakes disclosed by the DMV last month.
| Betcha that in November the margin of the Democratic candidates’ popular vote wins will be down by that much versus 2016... |
Marquis contacted The Times on Sept. 30 to say that his attempt to get a replacement driver’s license at a DMV field office in late August ended with him being sent a registered voter notice by elections officials. DMV officials, in responding to a request for comment from The Times, then discovered additional errors that were blamed on employees making data entries.
"We have worked quickly with the Department of Technology to correct these errors and have also updated the programming and added additional safeguards to improve this process," DMV Director Jean Shiomoto said in a written statement.
Shimoto and Amy Tong, the director of the state’s technology department, notified Secretary of State Alex Padilla of the errors on Monday.
The revelation prompted Padilla ‐ who held a conference call with elections officials across California to discuss the new issues ‐ to ask for an independent audit of the implementation of the motor voter system.
Padilla said in a letter to Shiomoto and Tong that he is "deeply frustrated and disappointed" after the repeated errors. "Immediate and transparent action is imperative," Padilla wrote. |