BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 29 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 13, 2014 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mike Gatto, Chair SB 29 (Correa) - As Amended: August 11, 2014 Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:5-2 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: Yes SUMMARY This bill allows vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots to be received by elections officials after election day. Specifically, this bill: 1)Provides that VBM ballots, including those of military and overseas voters, are timely cast if received by mail or a bona fide private delivery company no later than three days after election day and either of the following is satisfied: a) The ballot is postmarked or time-stamped on or before election day. b) If the ballot has no postmark, a postmark with no date, or an illegible postmark, the VBM identification envelope is date-stamped by the elections official upon receipt and signed and dated on or before election day. 2)Allows jurisdictions having the necessary computer capability to begin processing VBM ballots on the 10th rather than the 7th business day prior to an election. 3)Extends, from 28 days to 30 days after the election, the deadline for elections officials to submit the certified statement of election results. 4)Allows counties to use envelopes and other materials that do not take into account the above changes until supplies are exhausted. FISCAL EFFECT Minor net reimbursable costs or minor net savings. SB 29 Page 2 County elections officials will incur additional costs to manually check for a postmark on all ballots arriving up to three days following election day and to date-stamp ballots received within this timeframe that do not have a postmark. An unofficial count indicates that more than 20,000 ballots arrived too late to be counted at the last statewide general election. At this level, the additional costs to counties statewide would likely be very minor. As more voters become aware that they may mail their VBM ballot as late as election day, many more ballots are likely to arrive after election day, and the additional costs to counties will increase commensurately. Offsetting these additional costs, however, are provisions in the bill allowing counties to begin processing VBM ballots three days earlier and providing two additional days to certify election results. These provisions will reduce counties' personnel costs to conduct every election. The likely net result of this bill is thus insignificant net costs or savings. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . According to the author, "Late delivery of otherwise valid ballots has long been a problem but will grow worse given the U.S. Postal Service's plans to continue closing mail processing centers. According to estimates, as many as 26,000 mail ballots arrived too late to be counted in California's November 2010 election - and this was prior to the USPS cutbacks?Numerous states grant additional time for the arrival of regular vote-by-mail ballots or military and overseas ballots." 2)Postal Service Facility Closures and Mail Delays . According to elections officials, one of the most significant impacts of recent postal service facility closures on the election process is significant delays in mail delivery in some circumstances. Elections officials from counties served by closed facilities have indicated that some first class mail has taken five to seven days to arrive after those closures, compared to the usual delivery time of one to three days. To the extent that these closures and additional future closures planned by the USPS result in mail delivery delays, voters who mail their ballots within a reasonable timeframe could, through no fault of their own, be disenfranchised. SB 29 Page 3 3)Deadlines in Other States . According to the National Association of Secretaries of State, three states require mail ballots from civilians living in the US to be returned prior to election day in order to be counted, while 36 states (including California) require such ballots to be received by election day. Eleven states and the District of Columbia allow mail ballots from civilians living in the US to arrive after election day and still be counted as long as the ballot is postmarked (or in some cases, signed and dated) by election day. 4)Related Legislation : AB 269 (Grove), pending in Senate Appropriations, allows the VBM ballot of a military or overseas voter to arrive up to three days after the election and still be counted, provided the ballot is postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service or the Military Postal Service Agency on or before election day. 5)Prior Legislation : SB 348 (Correa) of 2011, which allowed VBM ballots to be counted if postmarked by election day and received by the elections official no later than six days after the election, was held on Suspense in Senate Appropriations. AB 562 (Fong) of 2012, an urgency measure similar to this bill, failed on concurrence in the Assembly. Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081