BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2080
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2080 (Gordon)
As Amended August 14, 2012
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: | |(April 26, |SENATE: |22-14|(August 22, 2012) |
| | |2012) | | | |
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(vote not relevant)
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|COMMITTEE VOTE: |5-1 |(August 29, 2012) |RECOMMENDATION: |concur |
|(E. & R.) | | | | |
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Original Committee Reference: E. & R.
SUMMARY : Deletes a requirement that a voter must be ill or
disabled in order to have a family member or a person in the same
household return a vote by mail (VBM) ballot for that voter.
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of the bill, and
instead:
1)Eliminate a requirement that a voter must be ill or disabled in
order for that voter to be able to designate his or her spouse,
child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, brother, sister, or other
person residing in the same household as the voter, to return the
voter's VBM ballot to the elections official from whom it came or
to the precinct board at a polling place within the jurisdiction.
2)Add double-jointing language to avoid chaptering problems with AB
2054 (Fong).
EXISTING LAW permits a voter to designate his or her spouse, child,
parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, or a person residing in
the same household as the voter to return the voter's VBM ballot if
the voter is unable to return the ballot due to illness or
disability.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill provided that if 500 or more
signatures were submitted to an elections official on a petition
AB 2080
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for the recall of a state officer, the elections official could
verify, using a random sampling technique, either 3% of the
signatures submitted or 500 signatures, whichever is greater,
instead of verifying the lesser of the two amounts.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "Vote-by-mail voting used to be
limited to voters who were either traveling on Election Day or home
bound. Voting by mail has become a significant tool of convenience
for busy voters and a means to potentially increase participation.
In recognition, California law has evolved to facilitate rather
than place barriers in the way of voting by mail?.AB 2080 would
update the law regarding the circumstances when a person other than
the voter, can drop off a voter's vote-by-mail ballot. Under
existing law, a voter's vote-by-mail ballot may be returned to the
local elections official or any polling place within the
jurisdiction on or before Election Day. If the voter is unable to
return the ballot due to illness or other physical disability, the
voter can designate their spouse, child, parent, grandparent,
grandchild, brother, sister, or person residing in the same
household to return the vote by mail ballot?.In an effort to make
participation easier without eliminating existing safeguards, this
bill simply deletes the requirement that a voter be ill or disabled
in order to have his or her ballot returned by someone else."
Existing law limits the people who may pick up or drop off a VBM
ballot for a voter, generally restricting such activities to
immediate family members or people living in the same household as
the voter. Additionally, existing law requires a voter to return
his or her own VBM ballot, unless the voter is ill or physically
disabled. No such restriction applies when a person is picking-up
a VBM ballot for an immediate family member or other voter living
in the same household as that person.
In light of these restrictions, existing law allows a person to
pick-up a ballot for his or her spouse regardless of whether that
spouse is ill or disabled, but prohibits that person from returning
his or her spouse's completed VBM ballot unless the spouse is ill
or physically disabled. Elections officials indicate that this
requirement is unenforceable since they have no way of verifying
whether a voter is ill or disabled.
This bill was substantially amended in the Senate and the
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Assembly-approved provisions of this bill were deleted. As a
result, this bill was re-referred to the Assembly Elections and
Redistricting Committee pursuant to Assembly Rule 77.2, and the
committee subsequently recommended that the Assembly concur in the
Senate amendments to this bill.
The language in this bill is similar to a portion of the
Assembly-approved version of AB 867 (Swanson). Subsequent to its
approval by the Assembly in 2011, AB 867 was amended to address a
different issue.
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
FN: 0005820