BILL ANALYSIS Ó Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair SB 397 (Yee) Hearing Date: 5/16/2011 Amended: 5/11/2011 Consultant: Maureen Ortiz Policy Vote: E&CA 3-2 _________________________________________________________________ ____ BILL SUMMARY: SB 397 authorizes counties to develop and use an electronic voter registration system that will be operable only until a statewide system is implemented upon the completion of VoteCal. The bill requires the Secretary of State (SOS) to obtain an electronic copy of an affiant's signature from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and forward that signature to the applicable county for verification. _________________________________________________________________ ____ Fiscal Impact (in thousands) Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Fund SOS $75 --unknown, annual ongoing- General DMV ----------unknown, potentially $500-------- Special* County IT costs ----potentially $500, offset later from reduction in manual voter registration---- Local *Motor Vehicle Account _________________________________________________________________ ____ STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Costs to implement any electronic voter registration system will be borne by counties which opt to establish a system pursuant to this bill, and will not be reimbursable by the state. Current estimates are approximately $500,000 if all 58 counties choose to establish an online voter registration program. Once a system is implemented, costs for registering voters should SB 397 (Yee) Page 1 greatly diminish, as will state costs for printing paper affidavits of registration. The Secretary of State expresses concerns over time and funding to modify or restructure its information technology system in order to be able to securely receive, store, and provide the signatures to county election elections officials by January 1, 2012. SOS anticipates first year costs of $75,000 and unknown annual ongoing. The Department of Motor Vehicles has not completed its fiscal estimate of SB 397 as of this writing however, preliminary costs are in excess of $500,000. A voter may use the electronic registration system to submit an affidavit of voter registration on the county elections official Internet Web site, providing the person is qualified to register to vote, has a valid California driver's license or state identification card, and resides in that county. Other provisions include the following: a) The affidavit is received on or before the 15th day prior to an election to be held in the precinct of the person submitting the affidavit, b) The affiant affirmatively attests to the trust of the information being provided, c) The affiant affirmatively assents to the use of his or her signature from a driver's license of state identification card. d) The county elections official shall notify the Secretary of State of each electronic affidavit received, including all information necessary for the SOS to obtain the signature from the DMV. Upon receiving the notice from the county, the SOS will obtain an electronic copy of the affiant's signature directly from the DMV, and shall then provide an electronic copy of the affiant's signature to the applicable county. The county, upon receipt of the data from the Secretary of State, will then immediately verify the following: 1) that the affiant has a California driver's license or state ID card which matches the number provided by the affiant, and 2) that the date of birth provided by the affiant matches that which is on file with the DMV. SB 397 requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to notify the Secretary of State of each person who has a valid California driver's license or state identification card, at regular SB 397 (Yee) Page 2 intervals. However, the bill does not define the frequency of those intervals. If the information is sent at intervals greater than 24 hours, the SOS has concerns about possible voter disenfranchisement. Additionally, SB 397 requires the county elections official to employ security measures to ensure the accuracy and integrity of voter registration affidavits that are submitted electronically. Any county electronic voter registration systems that are developed and implemented will become invalid when the Secretary of State certifies the completion of a statewide voter registration database that complies with the requirements of the federal Help American Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). The SOS is currently in the bidding process of contracting with a vendor and expects the statewide database, known as VoteCal, to be fully operational in 2015 and encompass online voter registration capabilities. VoteCal and Online Voter Registration . Among other things, HAVA required every state to implement a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list defined, maintained, and administered at the state level. This statewide voter registration list will serve as the official list of eligible voters for any federal election held within the state. HAVA provided funds to states to develop voter registration lists and required each state to develop such a list by January 1, 2004. HAVA also provided a procedure, however, for states to request a waiver that extended the deadline to January 1, 2006. The SOS applied for, and received, such a waiver. At the time HAVA was approved, California was already using a statewide voter registration system known as Calvoter that achieved some of the goals of the voter registration list required by HAVA. However, Calvoter did not satisfy many of the requirements in that law, including requirements that the database be fully interactive and have the capability of storing a complete voter registration history for every voter. In January 2005, the SOS sought guidance from the United States Department of Justice (Justice Department) regarding a plan for SB 397 (Yee) Page 3 compliance with HAVA's statewide voter registration list requirements. Under the initial plan, the state would achieve interim short-term compliance with HAVA by January 1, 2006, through upgrades to Calvoter, with a plan for long-term compliance through the development and implementation of a new voter registration system, to be known as VoteCal. The Justice Department, however, expressed concerns that this plan did not comply with the requirements of HAVA. Subsequent discussions between the SOS and the Justice Department led to the adoption of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the two parties. In that MOA, the SOS committed to further upgrades to the Calvoter system to achieve short-term interim compliance with the requirements of HAVA, and to complete development and implementation of a longer-term solution for replacing the Calvoter system with a new permanent statewide voter registration system. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed to refrain from initiating litigation in federal court against the state to enforce the voter registration list requirements of HAVA. Since that MOA was signed on November 2, 2005, the state has continued its efforts to develop the VoteCal system. After completing a planning process that is required by state law for all major technology projects, the procurement process began, and a final deadline for bids to be submitted for the VoteCal project was set for January 29, 2009. Of all the vendors who submitted bids for the VoteCal project, only one - Catalyst Consulting - met all the requirements of the request for proposal (RFP). Upon obtaining approvals for expenditure authority for the VoteCal costs, a contract was executed with Catalyst Consulting on September 8, 2009, and work on the VoteCal project commenced. However, on April 19, 2010, the SOS discovered that the vendor hired to develop and deploy the VoteCal system had not obtained a performance bond for the project, even though the RFP required the vendor to obtain such a bond within 21 days of the contract being executed. Additionally, the SOS and the independent project oversight consultant that was hired to oversee the VoteCal project both expressed concerns about the ability of Catalyst Consulting to meet the agreed-upon schedule for VoteCal to be deployed. On May 21, 2010, the SOS and Catalyst Consulting agreed to terminate the contract for the development SB 397 (Yee) Page 4 of VoteCal. Since terminating the contract with Catalyst Consulting in May, the SOS, in coordination with the Department of General Services and the California Technology Agency, has begun the process again of awarding a contract for the development of VoteCal. A new RFP was issued on October 29, 2010 but a contract has yet to be awarded. The delay in the implementation of a statewide voter registration database that complies with HAVA has notable impacts on election administration in the state. Among other programs that have been signed into law and absent new legislation to provide otherwise, online voter registration will not go into effect until VoteCal is in place.