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Here's some information from SoS of CA website. I don't think it's as black and white as you claim.
Per: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration
Qualifications to Register to Vote
To register to vote in California, you must be:
Further:
- A United States citizen and a resident of California (for information on voters in the military or overseas, please see Military and Overseas Voters),
- 18 years old or older on Election Day,
- Not currently serving a state or federal prison term for the conviction of a felony (for more information, please see Voting Rights Restored: Persons with a Prior Felony Conviction), and
- Not currently found mentally incompetent to vote by a court (for more information, please see Voting Rights: Persons Subject to Conservatorship).
Voter Registration Identification Requirements
You must provide:
If you don't have either, you can still register. You'll be assigned a unique identifier to validate your registration.
- A California Driver's License or state ID number, or
- The last four digits of your Social Security Number (SSN) (if you do not have a CA ID).
Note: To get a CA DL, you DO NOT need to provide proof of citizenship. To get an SSN you do. So a non-citizen could use a DL to register.
So to REGISTER to vote, pretty much anyone can. The question is whether or not they get their vote counted if their qualifying credentials are invalid. I'm not sure what this "validate your registration" means here, especially if you succeed in receiving a mail-in ballot from submitting online, there's no polling place where you have to verify yourself if you didn't present the identification requirements as far as I can tell, so the onus is on the ballot processing to catch it.
Overall it seems possible to register to vote if you're not a citizen, you can get a mail-in ballot I would argue if you don't have the proper requirements, and it looks like you can even mail in a ballot if you wanted too. There should be checks and validations on the other end to prevent the vote from counting, but clearly it looks like it can and does, to some degree, get through.
I'm a starch proponent for mail-in voting and frictionless voting options but to me, it also seems we have some gaps that can allow bad actors or mistakes to occur, which regardless of your position, is not good for the integraty of the voting system. Threats of breaking the law don't seem enough to me either.
I was typing my response to the other posts while you were posting pretty much the same thing. I wasn't replying to you.
If you haven't completed the ID requirements, then you mail-in ballot will not be counted. The return envelope has a bar code that identifies it, and it will be set aside until you have a chance to "cure" your incomplete registration.