SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed on Sunday a Senate bill that would have automatically registered millions of eligible voters who had opted out of signing up when conducting business at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“While the goal of streamlining voter registration is commendable, this bill raises several concerns,” Newsom stated in his veto message on Senate Bill 299. “It would place the DMV in the role of determining voter eligibility, a function more suitable for elections officials.”

The governor noted the implementation of such a system would not respect residents’ decision to decline to register, which he described as “a matter of personal prerogative.”

In a statement released Monday, roughly 140 community-based organizations, all members of the California Grassroots Democracy Coalition, said that many residents declining to register have done so because of confusion over whether they qualify, because of language barriers or because they don’t have time to get registration questions resolved.

“Voter registration was created to deter certain communities from participation, and it clearly continues to do so when California’s electorate is not representative of our state demographically,” the coalition stated. “Ultimately, the Governor chose not to invest in the Californians most impacted by systemic racism.”

A report by the California Secretary of State showed that more than half of eligible but unregistered voters are opting out of signing up to vote when given the chance at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The Public Policy Institute of California found a number of critical distinctions between likely voters and those who are unregistered. Among them: Whites make up 38% of California’s adult population but 50% of likely state voters. In contrast, Latinos constitute 36% of the adult population and 26% of likely voters. Likely voters also tend to be older, more educated, more affluent and more likely to own a home than the state’s unregistered voters.

In an interview last summer, grass-roots organizer Julius Thibodeaux-Hasan said he works with many young people who have been involved with the justice system. They see voting as wholly unconnected to them, he said, until he and his team at Movement4Life educate them on ballot measures that will directly affect their quality of life and future well-being.

“They don’t understand that they have a voice and that they need to weigh in on things that are happening in their communities, laws that are being passed, legislation that will impact them or impact their communities in ways that oftentimes have a negative impact,” said Thibodeaux-Hasan, executive director of Sacramento’s Movement4Life.

If they were already registered, Thibodeaux-Hasan said, they could make their votes count right away, but instead they must make a detour to try and get registered before an election deadline.

Newsom also said that developing the new system would require “costly and complex changes” to the current Motor Voter system that he said were estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. These expenditures, he said, would come at a time when he and legislators already have had to cut costs to balance the budget.

The grass-roots coalition, in response to the governor’s veto message, stated that SB 299 had delayed implementation until 2030, so it would not have affected the 2024-2025 budget cycle. The bill also would have used the existing pre-registration protocols already in place for 16 and 17-year-olds when they receive their driver’s licenses. The bill was authored by state Sen. Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara.

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