A crisis is brewing at the secretary of state's office that threatens to disenfranchise tens of thousands of California voters. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson needs to act immediately to protect them.

Here's the problem: Twenty-six percent of all new voter registrations or re-registrations submitted by county registrars to the statewide voter lists now required under federal law have been rejected. So far, the rejections apply to more than 52,000 California residents who since the start of the year either registered to vote for the first time or moved, married and changed their names, or changed party affiliations and attempted to update their voter registration information.

The problem is rooted in the federal Help America Vote Act, which aimed to prevent voter fraud. Beginning this year, HAVA requires citizens to provide either a state driver's license or Department of Motor Vehicles identification number on their voter affidavit. If they don't have either of those, voters must provide the last four digits of their Social Security number. Names and numbers are then cross checked with DMV, Social Security, and prison and death records.

That has produced the hang-up. Because of the inadequacies of the DMV database, when the voter's information is cross-checked with state records, a space in a name like De La Torre or O'Neal, for example, will come up as a nonmatch. Newly married women who updated their voter registration information but not their driver's licenses turn up as nonmatches as well.

Sacramento County reports a 10 percent rejection rate. Los Angeles County reports rejection rates as high as 43 percent.

Beginning last Friday, McPherson belatedly but appropriately updated his own procedures to allow the state to review the record and, where birth dates and DMV numbers match exactly, to validate the registration.

However, he says, state law does not allow officials to fill in missing driver's license numbers, which account for 60 percent of the rejected applications. In those cases, county registrars are required to call or mail voters to get that information, a significant burden for county elections officials rushing to prepare for the June primary.

Even if they can be reached, many voter applicants refuse to give out their driver's license number to a person who calls them for fear of identity theft.

McPherson wants the Legislature to pass urgency legislation to allow registrars to simply fill in the driver's license numbers where the identity of the voter applicant is clear: where the name and birth date match the DMV record exactly. Others argue that a law change is unnecessary and the secretary can simply change his regulations.

With the primary election just 55 days away, this is no time for debate. Officials should stop squabbling. McPherson should change the regulation and allow registrars to fill in the missing driver's license numbers. The Legislature should also pass urgency legislation - effective the minute it's signed - to validate the regulatory change.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of voter applicants in limbo should be treated as eligible voters. They should receive their state and local voter information pamphlets. If they request it, they should be allowed to vote absentee. If they show up at the polls and present identification, they should be allowed to vote and not just provisionally. The state's muddled election bureaucracy must not be allowed to get in the way of a citizen's right to vote.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14242751p-15061790c.html