BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 2080
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   March 27, 2012

                  ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
                                  Paul Fong, Chair
                 AB 2080 (Gordon) - As Introduced:  February 23, 2012
           
          SUBJECT  :   Recall elections: state officers: signature 
          verification.

           SUMMARY  :   Makes a technical correction to the process governing 
          the verification of signatures on a recall petition.  
          Specifically,  this bill  provides that if 500 or more signatures 
          are submitted to an elections official on a petition for the 
          recall of a state officer, the elections official may verify, 
          using a random sampling technique, either three percent of the 
          signatures submitted or 500 signatures, whichever is greater, 
          instead of verifying the lesser of the two amounts.

           EXISTING LAW  :

          1)Establishes a procedure for the recall of state officers.

          2)Requires a section of a petition for the recall of a state 
            officer to be filed with the elections official of the county 
            for which it was circulated.

          3)Provides that, upon each submission of a section of a petition 
            for the recall of a state officer to a county elections 
            official, the officials shall count the number of signatures 
            on the section and submit those results to the Secretary of 
            State.  Provides that if 500 or more signatures are submitted, 
            the elections official may verify, using a random sampling 
            technique, either three percent of the signatures submitted, 
            or 500 signatures, whichever is less.

          4)Requires elections officials, when using a random sampling 
            technique to determine the number of valid signatures on a 
            petition for the recall of a local officer, to examine at 
            least 500 signatures or five percent of the signatures, 
            whichever is greater.  

          5)Requires elections officials, when using a random sampling 
            technique to determine the number of valid signatures on the 
            nomination papers for a candidate who is running using the 
            independent nomination process, to examine at least 500 







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            signatures or five percent of the signatures, whichever is 
            greater.

          6)Requires elections officials, when using a random sampling 
            technique to determine the number of valid signatures on a 
            petition for a state initiative or referendum, to examine at 
            least 500 signatures or three percent of the signatures, 
            whichever is greater.

          7)Requires elections officials, when using a random sampling 
            technique to determine the number of valid signatures on a 
            petition for a county, city, or district initiative, to 
            examine at least 500 signatures or three percent of the 
            signatures, whichever is greater.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  Unknown.  State-mandated local program; contains 
          reimbursement direction.

           
          COMMENTS  :   

           1)Purpose of the Bill  :  According to the author:

               Under existing law, the various provisions addressing 
               requirements for qualifying a recall for a ballot are 
               inconsistent.  If fewer than 500 signatures for a 
               recall petition are submitted to the county elections 
               official, he or she shall count the number of 
               signatures and, for state officers, submit those 
               results to the Secretary of State.  

               However, if there are 500 or more signatures 
               submitted, multiple potentially conflicting standards 
               exist.  One sets a threshold of a random sampling of 
               at least 500 or 3 percent of signatures, whichever is 
               less, while other provisions set a threshold of a 
               random sampling of at least 500 or 3 percent of the 
               signatures, whichever is greater.

               Specifically, under Section 11105 of the Elections 
               Code, which governs the recall of state officers, the 
               elections official may verify, using a random sampling 
               technique, either 3 percent of the signatures 
               submitted, or 500, whichever is less.  This is 
               inconsistent with the test applied by other provisions 







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               of the Elections Code.  Under Sections 11225, which 
               governs the recall of local officers, the random 
               sample is at least 500 or 5 percent, whichever is 
               greater.  Section 9030, the broad provision related to 
               petitions related to state elections, provides that 
               the random sample is at least 500 or 3 percent, 
               whichever is greater.  Similarly, the two provisions 
               of law governing local measures submitted to voters, 
               Sections 9115 and 9309, also use the random sampling 
               standard of 500 or 3 percent, whichever is greater.

               This bill would reconcile the inconsistency between 
               standards for random sampling for a state officer's 
               recall so that it is consistent with the process in 
               place for local recalls, the general petition 
               verification law, and local ballot measures.  
               Specifically, this bill eliminates any conflict and 
               provides that the random sample to be of whichever is 
               greater between 500 signatures or 3 percent of the 
               signatures.

           2)Random Sampling  :  Existing law permits elections officials to 
            use a random sampling technique when verifying the signatures 
            on petitions in certain situations where officials are 
            presented with petitions with large numbers of signatures.  
            Under this technique, officials select a specified number of 
            signatures from the petition at random, check the validity of 
            those signatures, and based on that check of a small number of 
            signatures, project the total number of valid signatures on 
            the petition.  Because this technique only provides a 
            projection of the number of valid signatures on the petition, 
            rather than an actual hard count of the number of valid 
            signatures, existing law generally provides that the results 
            of a random sample of signatures can only be substituted for a 
            full verification of all signatures on the petition when the 
            projected number of signatures is either significantly above 
            or significantly below the number of signatures needed.  If 
            the number of signatures that are projected to be valid is 
            neither significantly more nor significantly less than the 
            number of signatures required on the petition in question, 
            elections officials generally are required to determine the 
            validity of each signature on the petition before making a 
            final determination whether the petition contains a sufficient 
            number of signatures.  In situations where the random sampling 
            technique projects that the number of signatures on the 







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            petition is significantly higher than the number of signatures 
            required on the petition, the petition is deemed to have a 
            sufficient number of signatures without the need for a full 
            examination, and if the random sampling results in projection 
            that the number of signatures is significantly lower than the 
            number needed, the petition is deemed to have an insufficient 
            number of signatures without the need for a full examination.  
            By avoiding the need to examine every signature on every 
            petition filed with an elections official, the random sampling 
            technique can significantly reduce the time and expense 
            associated with verifying signatures on petitions.

          In almost every case in which existing law provides for a random 
            sampling process for verifying signatures on petitions, the 
            law requires the elections official to verify either a certain 
            number of signatures, or a certain percentage of the total 
            number of signatures submitted, whichever is larger.  As a 
            general rule, this policy means that petitions with a larger 
            number of signers will have a larger number of signatures 
            chosen for verification as part of the random sampling 
            process.

          However, in the case of petitions for the recall of a state 
            officer, for any petition that has 500 signatures or more, 
            existing law provides that the elections official must examine 
            either 500 signatures or three percent of the signatures on 
            the section of the petition, whichever is  less  .  This is the 
            only situation in which the Elections Code establishes a 
            standard where an official using a random sampling technique 
            would base the number of signatures that needed to be verified 
            on the lesser of the two numbers.  This appears to be a 
            technical error in the statute.  Otherwise, existing law would 
            require an elections official to verify every signature on a 
            petition section that contained 499 signatures, but would only 
            require 15 signatures to be verified on a petition with 500 
            signatures.  Similarly, the existing statute would require an 
            elections official to examine 500 signatures on a section of a 
            petition whether that section had 17,000 signatures on it, or 
            100,000 signatures on it.

          This bill corrects this apparent technical error by providing 
            that elections officials must examine the  greater  of 500 
            signatures or three percent of the signatures on the section 
            of the petition whenever examining a section of a petition for 
            the recall of a state officer.  







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           3)Previous Legislation  :  Among other provisions, AB 2088 (Adams) 
            of 2010 contained a provision that was substantively identical 
            to this bill regarding the use of random sampling to verify 
            signatures on a petition for the recall of a state officer.  
            AB 2088 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger due to the 
            other, unrelated provisions of that bill.

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support                              Opposition
           
          Secretary of State Debra Bowen (sponsor)None on file.

           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094