BILL ANALYSIS AB 787 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 30, 2009 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING Paul Fong, Chair AB 787 (Hill) - As Amended: April 15, 2009 SUBJECT : State Commission on Juvenile Justice: report. SUMMARY : Requires elections officials to notify voters of the amount of postage that is necessary to return a vote by mail (VBM) ballot if more than one first-class stamp is required. Specifically, this bill requires the elections official, if he or she determines that more than one first-class stamp or equivalent postage is required to return a VBM ballot, to provide a notification to the voter of how many first-class stamps or equivalent postage is required. EXISTING LAW : 1) Provides that all VBM ballots must be voted on or before the day of the election and must be received by either the elections official from whom it came or the precinct board before the close of polls on election day. 2) Requires the elections official to deliver voting materials to each qualified applicant for a VBM ballot, including an identification envelope in which to return the VBM ballot that contains the following: a) A declaration, under penalty of perjury, stating that the voter resides within the precinct in which he or she is voting and is the person whose name appears on the envelope; b) The signature of the voter; c) The residence address of the voter as shown on the affidavit of registration; d) The date of signing; e) A warning plainly stamped or printed on it that the voter must sign the envelope in his or her own handwriting in order for the ballot to be counted; AB 787 Page 2 f) A statement that the voter has neither applied, nor intends to apply, for a VBM ballot from any other jurisdiction for the same election; and, g) The name and signature of the person, if any, authorized to return the VBM ballot. FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. State-mandated local program; contains reimbursement direction. AB 787 Page 3 COMMENTS : 1) Purpose of the Bill : According to the author: The number of Californians who vote by mail has swelled in recent years. In the November 2000 General Election, approximately 24% of the 11.1 million ballots were cast by mail rather than at polling places. During the last presidential election four years ago, 32.6% of the 12.6 million Californian ballots came in by mail. In the primary elections in February and June of this year, 41.7% and 58.7% of ballots were cast by mail, respectively. As more voters cast their ballots by mail, stamps are becoming an election issue. During the November race, election blogs throughout California were busy with questions from voters who were worried that their ballot was going to be returned due to lack of proper postage. However, while local elections officials don't advertise it, some counties in the state have arrangements with the Postal Service to deliver ballots and other election-related mail - even if it is short on stamps. Despite this agreement, the idea is not to subsidize the cost of a ballot. AB 787 simply seeks to inform the voter of the postage necessary for their ballot to be delivered to the registrar's office and save local governments money. 2) Prior Legislation : AB 984 (Price) of 2008, would have required elections officials to notify VBM voters when more than one first-class stamp was required to return their VBM ballot. This bill was held on the Senate Appropriations Committee's suspense file. AB 1167 (Nava), which was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, would have required county elections officials to negotiate with the United States Postal Service to ensure that all VBM ballots would be delivered regardless of whether sufficient postage was provided and required elections officials to provide a notice to VBM voters when more than one first-class AB 787 Page 4 stamp was required to return their VBM ballot. In his veto message, the Governor indicated that he was vetoing the bill because he "cannot support the provision of this bill that requires local election officials to negotiate with the United States Postal Service to ensure all [vote-by-mail] ballots are delivered even if they have insufficient postage." The Governor expressed his concern that such a provision was "unnecessary and fail[ed] to appropriately recognize the responsibility of [vote-by-mail] voters to use sufficient postage when returning their ballot." However, the Governor also indicated in his veto message that he thought that the requirement for election officials to notify VBM voters if a ballot will require more than one stamp to return in the mail was "a common sense proposal that appropriately places shared responsibility on all parties." 3) Title : The current title of this bill refers to the prior version of the bill. Although the title of the bill is "State Commission on Juvenile Justice: report," the content of the bill deals with VBM voting. AB 787 Page 5 REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION : Support None on file. Opposition None on file. Analysis Prepared by : Lori Barber / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094