BILL ANALYSIS SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, REAPPORTIONMENT AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Senator Loni Hancock, Chair BILL NO: AB 46 HEARING DATE: 6/17/10 AUTHOR: MONNING ANALYSIS BY: Darren Chesin AMENDED: 6/14/10 FISCAL: NO SUBJECT Special vacancy elections: Senate District 15: manual tally DESCRIPTION Existing law requires an election official, during the official canvass of every election, to conduct a public manual tally of ballots tabulated by an automated system, including vote by mail (VBM) ballots, cast in one percent of the precincts chosen at random. VBM ballots must be sorted by precinct and combined with the corresponding polling place ballots for purposes of the manual tally. The purpose of the manual tally is to ensure that the automated system tabulated the ballots correctly. This bill permits Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo Counties to conduct separate post-election manual tallies of one percent of the polling place ballots and one percent of the VBM ballots for the June 8 Statewide Primary Election as well as the June 22 special primary and August 17 special run-off elections to fill the vacancy in Senate District 15. This bill contains an urgency clause. BACKGROUND You Want it When ? On April 27, 2010 the Governor issued a proclamation setting August 17, 2010 as the date for a special runoff election to fill the vacancy in Senate District 15 which was created when former Senator Abel Maldonado was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor. Pursuant to current law, the special primary election was scheduled for June 22, 2010, just two weeks after the regular Statewide Primary Election on June 8, 2010. Concerns over the cost associated and required staff time to conduct two June elections prompted the Senate District 15 counties to work with the Secretary of State's office to develop a proposal that will improve the ability of the counties to manage this compacted election schedule. The change proposed by this bill provides a simpler process for the post election manual tally conducted on vote by mail ballots only. Counties currently have to manually tally a portion of these ballots but must first sort them by precinct. By allowing the counties to conduct separate manual tallies for polling place and VBM ballots, elections officials will not have to conduct the labor intensive and lengthy sorting process. COMMENTS 1.According to supporters of this bill, existing law ensures that VBMs are included in the one percent manual tally. For many counties sorting the VBMs into the precincts before the tally is a time consuming process, especially given the growth in VBMs. This bill would permit the counties that make up Senate District 15 to conduct two separate one percent tallies for the 6/8, 6/22, and 8/17 elections each election. One tally would be for the precinct ballots, the other would be for the VBMs. The SD 15 special vacancy elections are estimated to have significant costs to the counties involved. This measure will save hundreds of hours in staff time during the three elections and allow the registrars' staffs to complete the certification of the elections in the short time allotted for that process. This simple change in procedure will not affect the purpose of the manual tally. PRIOR ACTION Prior votes do not reflect the current version of this bill AB 46 (MONNING) Page 2 which was completely rewritten. POSITIONS Sponsor: Author Support: Secretary of State San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Oppose: None received AB 46 (MONNING) Page 3