BILL NUMBER:  SB 541
  VETOED	DATE: 10/12/2009




To the Members of the California State Senate:

I am returning Senate Bill 541 without my signature.

This bill is the result of an unacceptable situation in Humboldt
County, where the county was notified of a defect in the voting
software but failed to address the problem.  This resulted in 197
votes being deleted.  Because the Secretary of State (SOS) is not
notified when there is a flaw in a voting system, there was no safety
net to ensure that voters were not impacted.

The SOS inspects ballot manufacturing facilities before approving
them to do business in California.  This bill would appropriately
include the SOS in a notification of equipment defects during and
after this process.  However, this bill goes beyond insuring
appropriate notification and imposes substantial civil penalties on
voting system vendors.

Many of the technical changes in this bill are acceptable, and I look
forward to seeing a bill in the future that balances appropriate
disclosure, without unnecessarily restricting a company's ability to
do business in California.

Therefore I am unable to sign this bill.

Sincerely,



Arnold Schwarzenegger