BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de León, Chair
SB 113 (Jackson) - Pre-voter registration
Amended: January 6, 2014 Policy Vote: E&CA 4-1
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: January 23, 2014
Consultant: Maureen Ortiz
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: SB 113 expands the voter pre-registration program
to authorize 16 year olds to pre-register to vote.
Fiscal Impact:
Unknown, potentially less than $150,000 in reimbursable
mandated costs to county elections officials (General)
Partial offsetting costs from not registering these same
voters in later years. (General)
Actual costs vary by county and will depend on whether youth
will pre-register to vote by mailing in voter registration
cards, or by using the on-line voter registration process
through the Secretary of State's website.
Background: Existing law permits a person who is a United
States citizen, a resident of California, not in prison or on
parole for the conviction of a felony, and at least 18 years of
age at the time of the next election to register to vote.
The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), in part
requires states to implement a statewide voter registration
database, as specified.
Existing law pursuant to AB 30 (Price) Chapter 364/Statutes of
2009 also permits a person who is at least 17 years of age and
who otherwise meets all eligibility requirements to vote to
submit his or her affidavit of registration. Such a properly
executed registration is deemed effective as of the date that
the affiant will be 18 years of age, provided that the
information in the affidavit of registration is still current at
that time. The registrant must provide current information to
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the county elections official before the registration becomes
effective if the information in the current affidavit is
incorrect. However, AB 30 provided that the preregistration of
17 year-olds become operative only if the Secretary of State
(SOS) certifies that California
has a statewide
voter registration database that complies with the requirements
of HAVA. This requirement was intended to substantially reduce
costs to counties because a statewide voter database would
streamline registration and associated recordkeeping.
Existing law also requires the local registrar of births and
deaths to notify the county elections official monthly of all
deceased persons 17 years of age and over whose deaths were
registered with him or her or of whose deaths he or she was
notified by the state registrar of vital statistics.
Proposed Law: SB 113 will lower the minimum age for submitting
an affidavit of registration for purposes of pre-registering to
vote from 17 to 16 years of age. This bill would make
conforming changes to other related provisions of existing law,
and will not become operative until certification of a HAVA
compliant statewide voter registration database.
SB 113 will authorize any person who is at least 16 years of age
and otherwise meets all eligibility requirements to vote to
submit an affidavit of registration. The person will then
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become eligible to vote upon turning age 18 as long as the
information on the affidavit is still current, such as the
address. He or she will automatically begin receiving voting
materials and will be eligible to vote at the next election.
Staff Comments: The Secretary of State (SOS) has been in the
process of implementing a new statewide voter registration
database for several years, as required by the Federal Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. After difficulties with the
prior vendor and the termination of that contract, the SOS
recently announced the selection of a new contractor to develop
the new VoteCal statewide voter registration database. The
Department of General Services approved the contract on March 6,
2013. The SOS estimates that VoteCal will be fully implemented
by 2016.