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AP18:122

For Immediate Release
July 25, 2018
Contact:
Sam Mahood
(916) 653-6575

Nearly 800K Voter Registration Transactions Completed Since April Launch of California Motor Voter

SACRAMENTO - California Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced today that a total of 792,851 voter registration transactions were completed through the Department of Motor Vehicles in the first two and half months since the launch of California Motor Voter. This activity includes new voter registrations, as well as re-registrations and updated address transactions.

This total includes:

- 259,294 new voter registrations,
- 393,020 re-registrations,
- 120,016 updates to voter registration address, and
- 20,521 online voter registrations routed from DMV website and paper voter registration cards mailed to the Secretary of State’s office.

Click here to see the full voter registration statistics report.

"California Motor Voter is a game changer for voter registration and hundreds of thousands of Californians have already taken advantage of this new opportunity," said Secretary of State Alex Padilla. "By automatically registering and pre-registering to vote eligible Californians as they complete a driver license, state ID, or change of address transaction at the DMV, we are making it easier than ever to participate in our democracy. California Motor Voter is helping ensure hundreds of thousands of eligible Californians will be registered and ready to vote this November."

The report reflects transactions from April 1, 2018 through June 30, 2018. California Motor Voter launched April 23. There is a clear spike in registration activity as California Motor Voter streamlined the voter registration process for eligible citizens who applied for or renewed a driver’s license or state ID at the DMV. There were nearly 300,000 more voter registration transactions at the DMV during the first three months of California Motor Voter than there were during the previous three months. Since the launch of California Motor Voter, there has been an over 54% increase in voter registrations through the DMV compared to the previous three month period.

“Our automatic registration program seems to be doing its job of registering new voters while also cleaning up our voter rolls with updated information,” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher said. “Kudos to Secretary of State Padilla for implementing this vital program.”

The report also includes statistics on the language preference selected by those registered through California Motor Voter and the outreach conducted by the Secretary of State’s office to eligible Californians who opted-out of voter registration at the DMV.

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