How Many People In California Turned Down Jury Duty But Were Registered To Vote

The claim: 449K Californians who were excused from jury duty because they are not citizens are immune to vote

Variations of the claim have appeared on Facebook and on other social media sites for almost 2 years. In a May 12 post, Facebook user Jim Trimble defendant officials in California of allowing noncitizens to vote while banning them from serving on juries.

"449K Californians excused from jury duty for not beingness citizens but are registered voters. Did that just register?" Trimble wrote.

U.s.a. TODAY reached out to Trimble for annotate.

A September 2018 Facebook post past the political ideology group Capitalism called for all California votes to be nullified and its representatives removed from Congress. The state, "refused to cooperate with the Federal Ballot Integrity Plan" and was registering noncitizens to vote, the mail service claimed.

The origin of both posts appears to exist a July 2018 tweet by Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier, FactCheck.org reported. Fournier's message is identical to the one that was posted by the Capitalism group a few months afterwards.

What is the Federal Election Integrity Programme?

In May 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive social club establishing the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. The purpose of the commission was to study registration and voting processes used in federal elections, including improper and fraudulent voting, according to The White House.

Simply the committee was dissolved in 2018 after states refused to comply with Vice Chair Kris Kobach's asking to provide all-encompassing voter registration data. The Electronic Privacy Information Centre and the American Civil Liberties Marriage besides filed lawsuits confronting the government to protect private data, co-ordinate to the Federal Judicial Commission.

California Secretary of Country Alex Padilla was 1 of several state officials to deny the commission's request for voter data.

"As Secretary of Land, it is my duty to ensure the integrity of our elections and to protect the voting rights and privacy of our state's voters. I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally," Padilla stated in the press release.

Does California allow noncitizens to vote?

Just registered voters are allowed to vote in California's primary or full general elections. Registration is restricted to U.Southward. citizens who are California residents and who are at least eighteen years erstwhile on Election Mean solar day.

State or federal prisoners, felony parolees and those establish mentally incompetent to vote past a court are not permitted to register, according to Paula Valle Castanon, a representative for Padilla.

"Federal law requires that voters attest, nether penalty of perjury, that they run into eligibility requirements — including citizenship. This is the case no matter the source of registration — newspaper, DMV, or online," Valle said in an email.

In October 2018, Padilla canceled about 1,500 incorrect voter registrations resulting from a processing fault by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the Associated Press reported. Noncitizens were included among the registrants.

Merely the claim may have dislocated eligibility to vote in California with the city of San Francisco'due south motility to allow noncitizens to vote in local schoolhouse board elections. The Los Angeles Times reported on the decision in 2018.

Were noncitizens who were excused from jury duty allowed to vote?

It's difficult to rail why someone may have been dismissed from jury duty because diverse counties and courts handle jury selection, Valle said.

Just only the courts tin disqualify someone from serving based on factors listed in the California Code of Civil Process, said Blaine Corren, public diplomacy analyst for the Judicial Council of California.

Corren also said automatic voter registrations filed through the DMV are reviewed by the Secretarial assistant of State'southward Office.

"If the information shows they are non eligible, the Secretary of State'due south function cancels their erroneous request to register," Corren said in an e-mail.

An annual jury data study showed that 425,814 Californians were disqualified from jury duty in financial 2017-18 for "not existence a citizen of the United States," according to the Judicial Branch of California.

Moreover, Sam Mahood, a spokesman for the California Secretarial assistant of State, ,told PolitiFact that "information technology's not true that 449,000 noncitizens were registered to vote."

Fact-bank check website Snopes besides debunked a well-nigh identical claim on Facebook in 2018 and reported that undocumented immigrants in California are ineligible for jury duty and prohibited from voting in U.S. elections.

Our rating: Fake

We charge per unit this claim False because it was not supported by our inquiry. California does not permit residents who are not citizens of the U.South. to vote in primary or general elections. There is also no proof that nearly 450,000 noncitizens were registered to vote.

Our fact-check sources:

FactCheck.org, False Claim of California Registering Noncitizens to Vote
Whitehouse.gov, Presidential Informational Committee on Election Integrity
Federal Judicial Commission, The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, press release
The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco will allow noncitizens to vote in a local ballot, creating a new clearing flashpoint
PolitiFact, No evidence 449,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California
Snopes, Did 449,000 Californians Plough Down Jury Duty Because They Are Undocumented Immigrants?
Associated Press, California DMV: Non-citizens may exist registered to vote

The Associated Printing contributed to this study.

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Our fact check work is supported in part past a grant from Facebook.