BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2562
Author: Fong (D)
Amended: 5/23/14 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMEND. COMMITTEE : 4-0, 6/17/14
AYES: Padilla, Hancock, Jackson, Pavley
NO VOTE RECORDED: Anderson
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 78-0, 5/15/14 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT : Elections
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill makes various minor and technical changes
to provisions of law governing elections.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Permits a school district or the California Community College
(CCC) district governing board (governing board) to fill a
vacancy on the board by calling a special election or by
making a provisional appointment. If the governing board
makes a provisional appointment, registered voters may
petition for a special election to be held to fill the
vacancy. The number of signatures needed on the petition in
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order to require a special election to be held is based on
the number of registered voters in the district.
2. Provides that a person appointed to fill a vacancy on a
school or governing board hold office only until the next
regularly scheduled election for district governing board
members, whereupon an election shall be held to fill the
vacancy for the remainder of the unexpired term. A person
elected at an election to fill the school or governing board
vacancy shall hold office for the remainder of the term in
which the vacancy occurs or will occur.
3. Requires a voter who is signing an initiative, referendum,
recall, nomination, or other election petition or paper, to
personally affix his/her signature, printed name, and place
of residence on the petition or paper, and further provides
that if the residence address on the petition or paper does
not match the residence address on the voter's affidavit of
registration, the signature on the paper or petition shall
not be counted as valid.
This bill:
1. Clarifies that the number of signatures needed on a petition
to require a special election to fill a vacancy in a trustee
area on a school or governing board is based on the number of
registered voters in the trustee area, rather than on the
number of registered voters in the entire school or CCC
district.
2. Provides that a person appointed to fill a vacancy on a
school or governing board to hold office only until the next
regularly scheduled election for district governing board
members that is scheduled 130 or more days after the
effective date of the vacancy.
3. Specifies that an incomplete or inaccurate apartment or unit
number in the residence address of a signer of an election
petition or paper shall not invalidate that person's
signature.
4. Clarifies that when an argument in favor and an argument
against a measure have been selected to be printed in the
ballot pamphlet, the elections official is required to send a
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copy of the argument in favor of the measure to the authors
of the argument against the measure and a copy of an argument
against the measure to the authors of the argument in favor
of the measure.
5. Makes various conforming changes to provisions of law
governing the voter registration process to reflect the
existence of online voter registration.
6. Moves the date under which a voting system had to be
submitted for federal qualification in order for that system
to be subject to the pre-SB 360 (Padilla, Chapter 602,
Statutes of 2013) testing requirements from August 1, 2013,
to September 1, 2013.
7. Deletes a requirement for county elections officials to
submit an annual report to the Secretary of State (SOS)
detailing information about district elections held in the
county.
8. Corrects various erroneous cross-references in the Elections
Code (ELEC) and makes other technical and conforming changes.
Background
School and CCC district vacancies . Under existing law, when a
vacancy occurs on the board of a school district or CCC
district, the governing board has two options for filling that
vacancy. The governing board can either call a special election
to fill the vacancy, or the governing board can make a
provisional appointment to fill the vacancy. If the governing
board chooses to make a provisional appointment, voters in the
district have the ability to require a special election to be
held to fill the vacancy by submitting a specified number of
signatures on a petition. The number of signatures needed is
based on the number of registered voters in the school or CCC
district.
The law concerning the number of signatures needed to force a
special election is ambiguous, however, in cases where governing
board members are elected from trustee areas, rather than being
elected at-large. In this situation, it is unclear whether the
number of signatures needed to force a special election is based
on the number of registered voters in the entire school or CCC
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district, or if it is based on the number of registered voters
in the trustee area in question. Similarly, it is unclear
whether the petition may be signed by any voter in the school or
CCC district, or whether the petition may be signed only by
voters who are registered within the trustee area.
Additionally, if a school or governing board fills a vacancy by
appointment, the person who is appointed holds the seat only
until the next regularly scheduled election for district
governing board members, whereupon an election is held to fill
the vacancy for the remainder of the term. If a vacancy occurs
shortly before a scheduled election for district governing board
members, however, it may not be logistically possible to add an
additional contest to the ballot for the upcoming election.
Apartment numbers on petitions . When a voter signs an election
petition or paper, including nomination papers and initiative,
referendum, and recall petitions, the voter is required to
provide his/her address. A voter's signature is not counted as
valid if the address on the petition or paper does not match the
address on the voter's affidavit of registration. Voters who
live in apartments often omit their apartment number, or
transpose numbers in the apartment number, when writing their
address on a petition. Existing law does not explicitly address
whether an incorrect or missing apartment number should
disqualify a signature on an election paper or petition, but
many elections officials count such signatures as valid if the
street address for the voter is correct and the voter's
signature on the petition or paper matches the signature on the
voter's registration record.
Online voter registration . In 2012, the SOS launched a system
that permits California voters to register to vote on the SOS's
Internet Web site, pursuant to legislation previously approved
by the Legislature and the Governor - SB 381 (Ron Calderon,
Chapter 613, Statutes of 2008) and SB 397 (Yee, Chapter 561,
Statutes of 2011). Since the launch of the online voter
registration system, it has come to light that sections of the
ELEC that describe processes related to voter registration do
not reference the existence of the electronic application.
City ballot arguments . ELEC Section 9285, dealing with the
exchange of ballot arguments on city measures, specifies that
elections officials must transmit copies of arguments in favor
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of a city measure to the opponents of the measure, and in
opposition to a city measure to the proponents of the measure,
immediately upon receiving those arguments. However, because
multiple arguments may be received by the city elections
official, and because arguments can be withdrawn up until the
deadline for filing ballot arguments, the official cannot know
which arguments will be the official arguments that will be
included in election materials until after the deadline has
passed for submitting arguments.
District elections report . The Uniform District Election Law
(UDEL) was first enacted through the passage of AB 1892 (Porter,
et al, Chapter 2019, Statutes of 1965), in an attempt to
consolidate and standardize election procedures for various
districts in the state. UDEL initially applied only to water
districts, but subsequent legislation made UDEL applicable to
various other districts in the state, and made changes to the
UDEL procedures to address problems and technical difficulties
that arose during the first elections conducted under UDEL. One
such piece of legislation - AB 605 (Porter, Chapter 268,
Statutes of 1968) - added a requirement for county elections
officials to file an annual report with the SOS detailing
certain information about elections held in the county under
UDEL. The legislative history available on AB 605 does not
indicate the purpose of requiring those reports, though the
reports may have been helpful tools after the first few
elections conducted using UDEL in determining which districts
were conducting elections under that law, and in evaluating
whether changes to the law might be warranted.
In any case, regardless of the original purpose of this
reporting requirement, elections officials suggest that the
reporting requirement has outlived its usefulness, that the
reports take a significant amount of staff time and resources to
prepare, and that the completed reports that are submitted to
the SOS are filed away by the SOS and are not regularly reviewed
or otherwise used for any specific purpose.
Outdated and erroneous cross references . Last year, the
Legislature approved and the Governor signed SB 360, which
overhauled and reorganized procedures and criteria for the
certification and approval of a voting system. Among other
provisions, SB 360 moved the definitions of certain terms from
ELEC Sections 19251 to Section 19271, but that bill failed to
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update three cross-references in the ELEC to the section
containing those definitions.
In 1994, the Legislature reorganized the ELEC through the
passage of SB 1547 (Senate Elections and Reapportionment
Committee, Chapter 920). That bill was intended to be
non-substantive, rearranging the ELEC into a more logical and
manageable format. The same year, AB 2219 (Horcher, Chapter
79), eliminated certain recall procedures that applied to
recalls against city officers, and instead made city recalls
subject to the same provisions of law that applied to recalls
against all other public officers. Pursuant to the terms of the
reorganization bill, the language from AB 2219 took effect and
prevailed over the changes proposed to the same code sections in
the reorganization bill. However, a cross-reference to the city
recall procedures was not updated in AB 2219, and so that
cross-reference remained in the law as a part of the
reorganization of the ELEC.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local:
No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/18/14)
Secretary of State
California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The California Association of Clerks
and Elections Official writes, "Although many of the changes may
appear minor and technical in nature, clean up bills such as
this are important in maintaining and updating Election Code and
the Association is grateful to work with members of the Senate
and Assembly to craft such bills when they are needed."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 78-0, 5/15/14
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian
Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eggman, Fong, Fox,
Frazier, Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon,
Gorell, Gray, Grove, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Roger Hernández,
Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal,
Maienschein, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian,
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Nestande, Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea, John A. Pérez, V.
Manuel Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas,
Rodriguez, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron,
Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, Yamada, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Mansoor, Vacancy
RM:dk 6/20/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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