BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 813 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 1, 2013 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mike Gatto, Chair AB 813 (Melendez) - As Amended: April 16, 2013 Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:7-0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: Yes SUMMARY This bill: 1)Requires the Secretary of State (SOS) and county elections officials to post on their respective websites and to maintain on these websites for at least 10 years, their certified statement of election results in a downloadable spreadsheet format, as specified, that is compatible with software widely in use at the time of posting. 2)Stipulates that (1) applies only to those counties with a computer system capable of compliance without undergoing any modification. FISCAL EFFECT 1)Costs to counties are state-reimbursable but should be minor, as only counties with computer systems with existing capability of compliance have to do so. 2)Costs to the SOS are negligible. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . The author argues that, in general, the current posting of election results "does not provide an adequate way for an individual to analyze election data to maintain that the election was done honestly." 2)Background . Current law already requires elections officials to provide the SOS with results in an electronic format for elections for state and federal office, and for statewide AB 813 Page 2 ballot measures. These results are transmitted electronically to the SOS in the manner requested by the SOS, but no specific format is specified in statute. Most county elections officials (57 of 58) have results posted on the Internet for the most recent election held in the county. In most cases, however, elections results are available in HTML or PDF format, and not in a format that can easily be imported into a spreadsheet application. At least seven counties do provide results in a format that appears to comply with the requirements of this bill. Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081