BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1020
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Date of Hearing: May 13, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, Chair
AB 1020
(Ridley-Thomas) - As Introduced February 26, 2015
SUBJECT: Elections: voter registration.
SUMMARY: Requires, when a voter reregisters or transfers his or
her registration from one precinct to another, for the voter's
address to be updated and the voter's former address to be
maintained with the voter's registration record.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires an elections official, when a voter reregisters or
transfers his or her registration from one precinct to
another, to enter the voter's former address in the prior
registration portion of the voter registration affidavit, and
to cancel the voter's former registration.
2)Requires each state, pursuant to the federal Help America Vote
Act of 2002 (HAVA), to implement a single, uniform, official,
centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter
registration list defined, maintained, and administered at the
state level that contains the name and registration
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information of every legally registered voter in the state and
assigns a unique identifier to each legally registered voter
in the state.
FISCAL EFFECT: None. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose of the Bill: According to the author:
California is in the process of developing a new
statewide voter registration system in order to fully
comply with requirements in federal law. The new
system, which is known as VoteCal, is currently on
track for full implementation in 2016. While
California must develop a statewide voter database
pursuant to federal law, multiple state statutes must
be changed to conform to federal requirements.
AB 1020 will ensure that the federally mandated
VoteCal statewide voter registration database can be
implemented effectively by updating key Elections Code
statutes and deleting obsolete provisions.
2)VoteCal and HAVA Requirements: On October 29, 2002, President
George W. Bush signed HAVA. Enacted partially in response to
the 2000 Presidential election, HAVA was designed to improve
the administration of federal elections. Among other
provisions, HAVA requires every state to implement a
computerized statewide voter registration list maintained at
the state level. This statewide voter registration list will
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serve as the official list of eligible voters for any federal
election held within the state.
At the time HAVA was approved, California was already using a
statewide voter registration system, known as Calvoter, which
achieved some of the goals of the voter registration list
required by HAVA. However, Calvoter did not satisfy many of
the requirements in that law, including requirements that the
database be fully interactive and have the capability of
storing a complete voter registration history for every voter.
Discussions between the United States Department of Justice
and the Secretary of State (SOS) led to the adoption of a
memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the two parties. In that
MOA, the SOS committed to further upgrades to the Calvoter
system to achieve short term interim compliance with the
requirements of HAVA, and to complete development and
implementation of a longer term solution for replacing the
Calvoter system with a new permanent statewide voter
registration system. That new permanent system is commonly
known as VoteCal.
After a number of delays, the VoteCal system is being developed
and is currently in testing. The system is scheduled to be
rolled out to five counties this July as a pilot, and if
VoteCal is operating as anticipated, it will then be deployed
to the remaining 53 counties in six waves between October 2015
and March 2016. After the final wave is completed, the SOS
will certify VoteCal as the system of record for voter
registration information in California. The current project
schedule provides for that certification to occur by June
2016.
The implementation of VoteCal will help streamline the voter
registration process, including allowing voters to update
their voter registration records seamlessly when they update
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their address with the Department of Motor Vehicles or with
the state's Employment Development Department. VoteCal will
also make it easier and more efficient for elections officials
to do "list maintenance," including identifying and
eliminating duplicate registrations, transferring a voter's
record from one county to another when the voter moves, and
canceling the registrations of individuals who are no longer
eligible to vote.
As noted above, one of the HAVA requirements that the Calvoter
system did not satisfy was a requirement that the state voter
registration database have the capability of storing a
complete voter registration history for every voter. This
bill updates California law to ensure that when a California
voter reregisters or transfers his or her registration from
one precinct to another that the voter's registration history
is maintained and updated in the state voter registration
database, rather than requiring a voter's prior registration
to be canceled. This change will ensure that the state's
statutory processes for maintaining voter registration records
is consistent with federal law and with the design of the
VoteCal system.
Since the procurement process for VoteCal began, a number of
bills have been enacted that are tied to the implementation of
the VoteCal system. Specifically, legislation to authorize
election day voter registration (AB 1436 (Feuer), Chapter 497,
Statutes of 2012), to allow for preregistration of 16- and
17-year-olds (AB 30 (Price), Chapter 364, Statutes of 2009 and
SB 113 (Jackson), Chapter 619, Statutes of 2014), and to allow
for voters to opt to receive certain election materials
electronically (AB 306 (Fuller), Chapter 98, Statutes of 2009
and SB 1253 (Steinberg), Chapter 697, Statutes of 2014) all
will not go into effect until after the SOS certifies that the
VoteCal system is operational. Additionally, AB 1461
(Gonzalez) of the current legislative session, which provides
for every person who has a driver's license or state
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identification card and who is eligible to register to vote to
be automatically registered to vote, unless that person opts
out, as specified, was amended in this committee to provide
that voters would not be registered to vote pursuant to the
provisions of that bill until after VoteCal is operational.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Secretary of State Alex Padilla (sponsor)
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
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