New Verification System Creating Work For Election Officials

Sacramnto, CA — A new state voter verification system is kicking back thousands of voter registrations, creating more work for county election officials and potentially knocking some people off the voter rolls.

Since the start of the year, voters have been required to provide their driver´s license numbers, state identification card numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers when they register to vote.

The information is matched against other state records, such as driver´s license rolls, to attempt to verify the voter´s identity, which is a requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act.

About a quarter of the registrations are being kicked back to the counties either because voters didn´t include the required information, because the numbers didn´t match what the state had on record or because of errors.