BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1461
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Date of Hearing: May 20, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
1461 (Gonzalez) - As Amended May 5, 2015
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|Policy |Rules |Vote:|11 - 0 |
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| |Transportation | |10 - 5 |
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| |Elections and Redistricting | |5 - 2 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill requires the Secretary of State (SOS) to use records
from the DMV to automatically register to vote those individuals
who are eligible. Specifically, this bill:
AB 1461
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1)Requires the DMV to electronically provide to the SOS the
records of a person issued an original or renewal driver's
license (DL) or identification card (ID) if the information
provided by the person to prove their eligibility for a DL/ID
also establishes that the person is a United States citizen.
2)Makes (1) operative only after the SOS certifies that the
state's voter registration database (VoteCal) is operable
(anticipated in June 2016).
3)Requires the SOS to provide the DMV records to the county
elections officials where each person resides, unless the SOS
determines the person is already registered or ineligible to
register.
4)Requires the SOS to notify each person whose records are sent
per (3) that they will be registered to vote unless they
decline to be registered within 21 days upon receipt of
notification. The notification shall inform the person how to
decline to register and how they may state their political
party preference, if any.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)The DMV estimates costs of approximately $640,000 in 2015-16
and $530,000 annually thereafter related to programming,
driver's license form modifications, and increased talk-time
in field offices.
2)The SOS will incur significant mailing costs to notify persons
automatically registered to vote, through transmission of
their DMV records, that they may opt out of registration
AB 1461
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within 21 days.
To the extent voter registration is increased, there will be
additional costs to the SOS for printing and mailing state
voter pamphlets and additional costs to counties for printing
and mailing sample ballots.
(A recently-released budget proposal in the Governor's May
revision would provide $2.35 million for software/hardware
upgrades to the DMV's in-person DL application process and
online DL renewal process and for related updates to the SOS's
voter registration systems. This is intended to help
facilitate a person's voter registration at the time he or she
applies for or renews their DL. Improvement of the current
opt-in process should increase voter registration through the
DMV. AB 1461, by establishing automatic registration, with a
subsequent opt-out process, would seem to replace current
opt-in process going forward, including the enhancements
proposed for the budget.)
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, "Congress enacted the
federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993, commonly
known as the "Motor Voter Law," to increase the number of
eligible citizens who register to vote. However, more
than 20 years after the passage of the Act, voter
registration still stands as one of the biggest barriers
to participation in our nation's democracy.
"In fact, California ranked 38th among the 50 states in
voter registration in 2014 with nearly 7 million
Californians eligible to vote but not yet registered? AB
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1461 will enact the California New Motor Voter Act to
make voter registration easier when citizens get or renew
a driver's license, thereby increasing opportunities for
eligible citizens to participate in democracy by voting."
2)California Registration. According to the most recent
report of registration produced by the SOS, there are
17,717,936 registered voters in California out of an
estimated 24,362,774 Californians who are eligible to
register to vote, meaning that approximately 72.7 percent
of eligible Californians are registered to vote.
Over the last 50 years, the percentage of eligible
Californians who were registered to vote has been as high
as 80.2 percent (in 1996) and as low as 66.3 percent (in
1979).
3)Oregon is First. No state currently takes the
responsibility for proactively registering eligible
individuals to vote-instead, almost every state puts the
impetus on individuals to register themselves to vote
(North Dakota, which is the only state without voter
registration, is the exception). Earlier this year, the
Governor of Oregon signed legislation requiring Oregon
elections officials to automatically register people to
vote if the state Department of Transportation has
information indicating that those people are eligible to
register to vote. Individuals will have the option to
opt-out of being registered.
4)Other Issues. As noted in the Assembly Committee on Elections
and Redistricting analysis of this bill, several provisions of
the state's elections laws are based on the number and
percentages of registered voters. Since this bill could lead
to a significant increase in registrations, these impacted
provisions may need to be revisited. For example, current law
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limits a voting precinct to a maximum of 1,000 voters, thus
absent an adjustment in the limit, a substantial increase in
registrations could require county elections officials to
create thousands of new precincts, which would increase costs
of conducting elections. Other issues with this bill
identified in the analysis include the following:
a) The bill does not specify a date from which DMV records
would be a basis for registering individuals to vote.
(Oregon is planning to review the previous two years to
driver's license records.)
b) The information to be forwarded to the SOS from the DMV
is to include only a person's name, age, address, and
electronic signature, along with the person's political
party preference being subsequently requested by the SOS.
Other information currently requested from voter
registration applicants that will not be obtained through
AB 1461 include: language preference, race, email address,
phone number, prior registration, and whether the applicant
wishes to become a permanent vote-by-mail voter.
c) There will likely be a significant increase in
registered voters stating no party preference, as that is
the default option unless registrants affirmatively reply
to the SOS's notification of their registration.
d) Because the procedure established by this bill is
limited to people for whom the DMV has evidence that they
are citizens, many individuals who are eligible to vote
will not be registered to vote under this bill, even if
those individuals have driver's licenses or state
identification cards. For example, the DMV does not know
whether a licensee is a citizen or not, if that licensee
used a United States military identification card to prove
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his or her legal presence in the country. Similarly the
DMV will not necessarily have information to confirm the
citizenship of individuals who were originally issued
licenses or identification cards prior to 1994, or for
individuals who became citizens after being issued a
driver's license or identification card.
5)Related Legislation. AB 786 (Levine), also on today's
committee agenda, requires the DMV to use information on a
driver's license application directly for voter registration
rather than requiring a separate voter registration card (VRC)
to be completed by the applicant.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081