SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ California's Department of Motor Vehicles is asking lawmakers for a budget boost of $2.2 million to help it register voters ahead of the state's March 3, 2020, primary.
It's a fairly small sum, but it follows a $242 million increase in the DMV's budget that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom granted the department in June.
Lawmakers and Newsom allocated more money for the department because it is handling a crunch of customers seeking so-called Real ID cards that Californians will need by October 2020 to board airplanes without a passport. The DMV's total budget this year is $1.36 billion.
The department, which automatically registers people to vote when they visit the DMV through the state's Motor Voter program, said it needed the extra funds because it has had to redirect workers tasked with processing license transactions.
The shift has caused substantial delays in customers getting their licenses in the mail.
In the Nov. 22 letter sent to state lawmakers, the Department of Finance says the average time to process vehicle registration transactions has gone up from nine days to 16 days, while the average time to process driver license transactions at DMV headquarters has increased from five days to 14 days.
The finance department said it approved the request for more money to "reduce the processing times back to department standards and prevent backlogs in vehicle registration and driver license transactions."
Lawmakers out of session have a month to object to the approval but are unlikely to do so. If they take no action, the funds are approved.
Under federal law, the DMV must send voter registration information to the Secretary of State's Office within 10 days of receipt. That deadline bumps up to five days when people register to vote at the DMV within five days of the registration deadline.
The department said it would be "inappropriate" to use existing money because the effort to register voters is not related to transportation.
Democrats, such as Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco, say the money is needed, given the importance of registering eligible Californians.
"It makes more sense to be fighting for our democracy," Ting said. "This is a small investment to make sure more people can vote."
Republicans, however, believe the DMV shouldn't be in the business of registering voters.
"I don't think the DMV should get the money," said Assemblyman Jim Patterson, a Fresno Republican who has long criticized the state's Motor Voter program. "This is the consequence we face with the DMV being ill-prepared to manage Motor Voter in a way that we can trust."
