Law firm says California Secretary of State systemically violates National Voter Registration Act

Contra Costa attorney leading effort

The San Francisco-based Dhillon Law Group sent a letter to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, demanding that he correct, within 90 days, his office’s systemic failure to verify the eligibility of voters registered at the Department of Motor Vehicles, as required by the National Voter Registration Act.

The letter sent on behalf of three California voters demands that the Secretary of State’s office make the following corrections:

• Obtain from the DMV documentation regarding an individual’s citizenship, so that the Secretary of State may fulfill the NVRA requirement to ensure eligibility prior to placing a registrant on the voter rolls;
• Begin to review all voter registrations and compare the voter registration with databases maintained by the state of California to ensure that all registrants are eligible to vote before placing them on the California voter rolls;
• Review all current California registered voters to determine eligibility, and send notices to all non-citizens who happen to be on the voter rolls; and
• Update the California NVRA Manual to specifically enumerate the responsibilities of the registrar of voters in verifying voting eligibility, by consulting state and county databases to determine eligibility.

“The integrity of our voter rolls is critical to fair and honest elections,” said lead attorney from the Dhillon Law Group, Mark Meuser. “With this anticipated litigation, we seek to maintain the voter rolls by ensuring that only those who are eligible to vote are on the voter rolls, from the start.”

Meuser lives in Contra Costa County and ran against Padilla in last year’s election.

Judicial Watch and the Election Integrity Project of California won a settlement against the Secretary of State and Los Angeles County in 2018 that forced the removal of 1.5 million inactive voters from the voter rolls in compliance of the NVRA.

“California is the home of Silicon Valley and big data, the brain trust of global innovation, yet the California DMV insists on using stone-age strategies to manage its critical data on citizenship and voting rights,” said Dhillon Law Group managing partner, Harmeet K. Dhillon. “The DMV possesses information that can protect non-citizens from illegal registration on the voter rolls, yet this information is not properly being distributed to or used by the Secretary of State to perform his legally mandated duties. Californians deserve to know why the DMV and the Secretary of State are unwilling, or unable, to effectively share data and ensure the integrity of our voter rolls.”

The letter and more information may be found at CAVotingRights.com