Voting Rights: The Myth of Voter Fraud

So voting in California hasn't always been as accessible as it is today.

What has changed, and who did that work?

You know, California's voting laws and voting systems had really suffered from just a lot of what I call administrative neglect.

Over decades, our system had become quite poor.

And about maybe 15 years ago, there was a really big concerted push by civil rights groups, voting rights groups, good government groups.

For example, the ACLU itself, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Asian Law Caucus.

It's quite a few groups banded together and put forward and passed a number of reforms.

Our US Senator Alex Padilla, when he was Secretary of State, also spearheaded a number of really positive initiatives.

So, Carmen, if you compare where we were to where we are now, it's really pretty remarkable.

In California now, like I just said, any 18-year-old citizen who is not in prison can vote.

That took a ton of work to make sure that we removed the restriction on people on parole.

The state changed its criminal justice system, and some people who were previously serving felony in state prison were then sent to county jails, and we prevailed in court that the folks who are serving any sentence, whether misdemeanor or felony in county jail, can vote, too.

So that's one huge arc, making sure every citizen can vote regardless of criminal conviction, except while in prison itself.

Another huge battle was around automatic voter registration.

So many people have heard of motor voter laws.

So in California, we were successful in getting the state DMV to integrate either registering to vote or updating your registration at the point of getting your license online.

And that process has resulted in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of voters registering or updating their registration.

We've also gotten a lot of social service agencies that especially focus on people with disabilities or the very low income to integrate voter registration when people are getting those services.

Then there's the universal access to vote by mail, like we talked about earlier.

Every voter in California gets a ballot, and they can vote by mail.

There's also Election Day registration now, where if you have moved to the state and just established residency, but you hadn't yet registered to vote, or if you move within the state of California, you can register to vote on Election Day and cast a ballot that can be counted.

So these are all really positive changes in California voting laws, and they took a lot of work to achieve, but it ensures that every citizen in this state has the opportunity to register and to cast a vote that'll be counted.