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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.