BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 301
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 23, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Bob Wieckowski, Chair
AB 301 (Wagner) - As Amended: March 11, 2013
SUBJECT : ELECTIONS: AUTOMATIC TERMINATION OF VOTER REGISTRATION
FOR INCONSISTENT STATEMENTS ON JURY SUMMONS FORM
KEY ISSUE : SHOULD REGISTERED VOTERS BE SUMMARILY PURGED FROM
VOTER LISTS BECAUSE THEY HAVE INDICATED THAT THEY ARE ENTITLED
TO BE EXCUSED FROM JURY DUTY FOR LACK OF CITIZENSHIP?
FISCAL EFFECT : As currently in print this bill is keyed fiscal.
SYNOPSIS
Prospective jurors may indicate that they are disqualified from
jury duty because they are not U.S. citizens, among other
reasons. This bill would require court clerks to report the
name, address and birth date of such people to county elections
officials, and require automatic termination of the person's
voter registration. The author contends that a response to a
jury summons indicating that the person is not a citizen means
either that the individual is not a citizen or that he or she is
providing false information. In either case, the author argues,
the prospective juror should be removed from voter registration
rolls to help ensure that individuals voting in California
elections are meant to do so, and to provide another deterrent
to individuals falsely declaring that they are not citizens, in
order to elude the civic duty of serving on a jury. Opponents
argue that the bill poses an inappropriate new burden on the
courts, creates an unacceptable risk of error, is particularly
problematic for new citizens, and violates federal law.
SUMMARY : Terminates voter registration for persons who are
reported by the courts to have returned a juror summons
indicating that they are disqualified from jury duty because
they are not U.S. citizens. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the clerk of the superior court of each county to
furnish to the chief elections official of the county twice
per year a statement of the name, address, and date of birth
of each person who has, since the clerk's last statement,
declared in response to a jury summons from the superior court
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that he or she is not qualified to serve as a juror because he
or she is not a citizen of the United States.
2)Requires elections officials to summarily cancel the affidavit
of registration of each person whose name appears on a court
list as having declared in response to a jury summons that he
or she is not qualified to serve as a juror because he or she
is not a citizen of the United States.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the clerk of the superior court of each county to
furnish to the chief elections official of the county twice
yearly a statement showing the names, addresses, and dates of
birth of all persons who have been convicted of felonies since
the clerk's last report. The elections official shall, during
the first week of April and the first week of September in
each year, cancel the affidavits of registration of those
persons who are currently imprisoned or on parole for the
conviction of a felony. (Elections Code section 2212.)
2)Pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993,
provides that the name of a registrant to vote may not be
removed from the official list of eligible voters except in
the following circumstances: (a) at the request of the
registrant; (b) as provided by State law, by reason of
criminal conviction or mental incapacity; or (c) pursuant to a
general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the
names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible
voters by reason of the death of the registrant; or a change
in the residence of the registrant, provided that the state
observes certain protections. (42 U.S.C. � 1973gg-6(a)(3).)
3)Requires that any program to systematically remove the names
of ineligible voters from the official list of eligible voters
for death or change of residence shall be completed no later
than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general
election for Federal office. (42 U.S.C. � 1973 gg-6(c)(2)(A).
)
COMMENTS : This bill is sponsored by the author, who explains
the rationale for the measure as follows:
When an individual in the state is summoned for jury duty,
they have the ability to declare that they are not a
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citizen of California, and are therefore not eligible to
serve on a jury. When they declare they are not a citizen,
it either means that this individual is not a citizen and
the State's information is not up to date, or the
individual is providing false information. In the event
that a person is no longer a citizen, they may still be
included on state voter rolls and voting in elections that
they should not. If they are in fact a citizen, they are
committing perjury in order to avoid jury duty, and
depriving the state of eligible jurors.
AB 301 will require, when an individual declares that they
are not a citizen on their juror summons, that they be
removed from the California voter rolls. This bill assumes
that an individual who declares that they are not a
citizen, are doing so truthfully under penalty of perjury.
This will help ensure that individuals voting in California
elections are meant to do so and will provide another
deterrent to individuals falsely declaring that they are
not citizens, in order to elude the civic duty of serving
on a jury.
New Burden On Struggling Trial Courts. In opposition to the
bill, the Judicial Council states:
AB 301 would be financially and administratively burdensome
on the courts, as it would require court clerks to manually
review each juror questionnaire filled out by prospective
juror to identify individuals who identify themselves as
noncitizens. Courts do not currently have an automated
process that captures information on jury questionnaires so
this information is not quickly ascertainable. As a result,
AB 301 would require courts to establish a new data
tracking mechanism to identify individuals who state that
they are not citizens on jury questionnaires in order to
report that information to the chief elections official.
AB 301 would require the court to divert scarce resources
to support a function that is within the purview of the
county elections official and not the Judicial Branch
This Bill Would Appear to Require Elections Officials To
Summarily Terminate Voter Registrations Despite The Possibility
of Uncertainty And Error. This measure provides that court
clerks must record and report the name, address and birth date
of persons who return a jury summons indicating that he or she
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is ineligible for jury service because he or she is not a U.S.
citizen. Elections officials would be required to automatically
cancel the voter registration of persons on the basis of the
information stated on the court report within one week of
receiving the report.
It is not clear to what extent this problem allegedly arises,
and the author makes no contentions regarding its prevalence.
Assuming that termination of voter registration is an
appropriate penalty for a false statement on a jury summons,
the premise of this bill appears to be that every person who
returns a jury summons indicating that he or she is not a
citizen has done so intentionally. Unfortunately, there would
appear to be room for the possibility of error on the jury
summons forms. Citizenship is only one of many disqualifiers a
prospective juror may indicate, and there is a reasonable
potential that some prospective jurors may simply check the
wrong box on the form.
Even if every juror summons were accurate, however, there would
appear to be further potential for errors as court clerks
compile reports to the elections officials, including
transcription errors and confusion between the same or similar
names and street addresses. The California Association of
Clerks and Election Officials notes this problem by arguing that
the bill should provide "more data on the individual voter in
question in order to better identify the single voter amongst
hundreds of thousands of names," such as drivers' license or
social security numbers. Unfortunately the bill provides no
check against the possibility of these errors; elections
officials are simply commanded to automatically terminate the
registration of persons with the reported name, address and date
of birth.
The Risk of Error May Be Particularly High For New Citizens And
English Learners. The bill would require court clerks to
provide citizenship disqualification reports to elections
officials every six months, on the first day of April and the
first day of September. Each report would cover the preceding
six months. In the interim, however, a prospective juror's
citizenship status may have changed. As the ACLU states in
opposition, "this bill could penalize new citizens. It is
foreseeable that a legal permanent resident would not be a
citizen on the day they receive their jury summons card where
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they truthfully state that they are not a citizen, obtain
citizenship the next day, and then register to vote. The
cancellation of their voter file would seem to be an unintended
consequence of the author's goals."
In opposition to the bill, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and
Equality (AACRE) argues that over 2.6 million eligible voters in
California have limited proficiency in English, including 47% of
eligible voters who are naturalized. AACRE states, "Because
jury summons are typically sent to prospective jurors only in
English, many limited English proficient citizens likely face
difficulty in understanding the jury summons and some of them
mistakenly check the non-citizen box on the summons response
form. As a matter of policy, AB 301 is a step in the wrong
direction because it would likely result in the erroneous
removal of citizens from voter registration lists."
Summary Termination Of Voting Registration May Violate Federal
Law. This bill provides a basis for the termination of voting
registrations that appears to be contrary to federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) provides that
the name of a registrant to vote may not be removed from the
official list of eligible voters except in the following
circumstances: (a) at the request of the registrant; (b) as
provided by State law, by reason of criminal conviction or
mental incapacity; or (c) pursuant to a general program that
makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible
voters from the official lists of eligible voters by reason of
the death of the registrant; or a change in the residence of the
registrant, provided that the state observes certain
protections. (42 U.S.C. � 1973gg-6(a)(3).)
By providing that voters may be removed from the list because of
statements on a juror summons, this bill appears to run counter
to federal law.
In addition, the ACLU argues that the bill violates another
provision of the NVRA:
The NVRA [42 U.S.C. � 1973 gg-6(c)(2)(A)] prohibits any
systematic program from removing registered voters within
90 days of a federal election.
AB 301 would have county officials purge voters who have
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indicated they are not citizens on jury forms in April and
September of each year. These two purge dates would be less
than 90 days before either a primary or general elections
in years where federal elections are held. As such, it
would violate the NVRA.
Joining the ACLU, AACRE and MALDEF make a separate argument for
violation of federal law:
First, AB 301 runs counter to the protections afforded to
language minority voters under the federal Voting Rights
Act of 1965 (VRA). Section 203 of the VRA requires
jurisdictions it covers to provide language assistance to
citizens so that they have an effective opportunity to
participate in the electoral process. With respect to
written assistance, Section 203 essentially requires all
election materials disseminated to voters to be translated
in covered languages. AB 301 in effect incorporates jury
summons into the electoral process as a voting-related
material disseminated to voters, but does not provide for
translations of such materials. This arguably would lead
to non-compliance with Section 203 in covered
jurisdictions.
Second, it appears that AB 301 does not comply with the
requirements of the federal National Voter Registration Act
of 1993 (NVRA). Section 8(b)(1) of the NVRA requires that
jurisdictions carrying out list maintenance activities for
voter registration lists must conduct such activities in a
manner that is uniform, nondiscriminatory, and in
compliance with the VRA. Because AB 301 would not comply
with Section 203 of the VRA, as explained above, and would
likely have a disproportionate impact on LEP citizens, AB
301 runs afoul of the mandate set forth in Section 8(b)(1)
of the NVRA.
Third, it appears that AB 301 does not comply with the
protections contained in the federal Help America Vote Act
of 2002 (HAVA) against erroneous purging. Section
303(a)(4)(B) of HAVA requires jurisdictions, in carrying
out list maintenance activities, to adhere to "safeguards
to ensure that eligible voters are not removed in error
from the official list of eligible voters." As an example
of such a safeguard, the U.S. Election Assistance
Commission's guidance on list maintenance activities
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recommends that election officials contact individuals
prior to removing their names from the voter registration
list. The voter removal requirement set forth in AB 301
fails to provide any safeguard against erroneous removal of
voters and thus appears to be non-complaint with the
requirements of HAVA.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file
Support if Amended
California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
Opposition
ACLU
Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE)
Judicial Council
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
Analysis Prepared by : Kevin G. Baker / JUD. / (916) 319-2334