BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
30 (Price)
Hearing Date: 8/27/2009 Amended: As Introduced
Consultant: Maureen Ortiz Policy Vote: ER&CA 3-2
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 30 authorizes a person who is 16 years of age
to pre-register to vote, and requires the county registrar of
births and deaths to notify the county elections officials of
all deceased persons 16 years of age and over.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
SOS voter cards $0
$0 $43 General
County vital statistics -----unknown,
potentially minor------- General*
County elections processing ----unknown, potentially
over $70--- General*
*Reimbursable state mandate
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE.
The exact costs for implementation of this bill are unknown and
will depend on the number of 16 and 17 year olds that choose to
participate in the pre-registration program. There will be
offsetting savings in future years only if some of the
pre-registrants would have registered to vote upon turning age
18 anyway. To the extent that this program is successful and
captures a population of new voters who would not have otherwise
registered to vote, there will be reimbursable costs from the
General Fund. The above cost estimates are based on only a 5%
participation rate, however, actual costs could be much higher.
AB 30 provides that the pre-registration process will not begin
until the Secretary of State certifies the completion of a
statewide voter registration database. Known as "VoteCal", this
system is expected to be completed during 2012, therefore, there
will be no costs associated with this bill until that time.
VoteCal is a statewide voter database as required under the
federal Help America Vote Act of 2002. Although counties will
have their own election management systems, those systems will
easily interface with the SOS VoteCal program.
The Secretary of State (SOS) will incur costs for printing and
mailing registration cards and voter notification cards which
would be partially offset in future years by the savings from
those who would have otherwise registered to vote at the age of
18. The voter registration cards are predominantly distributed
at schools and Department of Motor Vehicle offices. According
to the SOS, estimates for printing and mailing out these cards
are about $0.57 each, and costs for printing and mailing voter
notification cards are $0.30 each. Estimates for processing
the voter pre-registration cards and
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AB 30 (Price)
maintaining the database to update changes such as addresses and
party affiliations can be as high as $1.40 in larger counties,
while smaller counties indicate much lesser costs. There are an
estimated 1 million persons who are age 16-17 living in
California.
If only 5% (or 50,000 people) pre-register to vote, costs for
processing voter registration cards by local election officials
would be about $70,000 annually. It should be noted that some
of these costs may be offset by savings in future years if a
portion of the people who pre-register to vote would have
registered in later years. However, the intent of this program
is to register persons who may not ordinarily register, thereby,
increasing voter participation. Therefore, not all costs will
be offset by savings in future years. Staff notes that AB 30
does not contain any provisions for voter outreach programs to
educate teens of their eligibility to participate in this new
program which would increase the likelihood of its success.
AB 30 authorizes any person who is at least 16 years of age and
otherwise meets all eligibility requirements to vote to submit
an affidavit of registration. The person will then
automatically be eligible to vote upon turning age 18 as long as
the information on the affidavit is still current, such as
address. He or she will automatically begin receiving voting
materials and will be eligible to vote at the next election.
When a person fills out an affidavit of registration, the county
elections official sends that voter a confirmation card
notifying the person that their eligibility to vote has been
confirmed. Although not specifically required in AB 30, it is
anticipated that counties will send a second confirmation card
to each person who pre-registers to vote upon turning age 18,
confirming that their address is still current, and notifying
them that they are officially eligible to vote. There are
approximately 1 million Californians age 16-17. The current
state registration rate is 70%, however, it is not known how
many teens will opt to participate in the pre-registration voter
program. According to the sponsor, other states which have
implemented pre-registration programs have realized a
participation rate of as little as 4% and as high as 34%. The
uncertainty of those percentages makes the costs of
implementation very difficult to estimate.
Existing law requires the county registrar of births and deaths
to notify county elections officials each month on the deaths of
persons age 18 and older that were recorded during the preceding
month. County elections officials then cancel the affidavit of
registration of the deceased voter. AB 30 will require the
monthly notifications to include persons who died that were at
least age 16, which will require county registrars to make
programming changes to accommodate this new level. Staff notes
that this provision in the bill may not be necessary and that
the current process of notifying elections officials when a
person over age 18 dies will likely be sufficient since any 16
or 17 year old that pre-registers will not be eligible to vote
until turning age 18.
AB 30 specifically prohibits any person age 16 or 17 who
pre-registers to vote from signing any petition until that
person reaches age 18. Existing law permits a person who is a
United States citizen, a resident of California, is not in
prison or on parole for
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AB 30 (Price)
the conviction of a felony, and who will be 18 years of age at
the time of the next election to register to vote by completing
an affidavit of registration.
This bill is similar to AB 1819 (Price) which was held on the
Suspense File in this committee last year.