BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2433 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 18, 2016 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Lorena Gonzalez, Chair AB 2433 (Travis Allen) - As Amended April 14, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Elections and Redistricting |Vote:|7 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | |Privacy and Consumer | |8 - 1 | | |Protection | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill authorizes the Secretary of State (SOS) to join an interstate voter data exchange, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), and waives all California voter confidentiality and voter data security laws in order to allow the SOS to share confidential voter records with ERIC. Specifically, this bill: AB 2433 Page 2 1)Authorizes the SOS to apply for membership with ERIC and to execute a membership agreement with ERIC on behalf of the state. 2)Requires the SOS to ensure that any confidential information or data provided by another state to the SOS remains confidential while in his or her possession. 3)Authorizes the SOS, notwithstanding any other law, to provide confidential information or data to persons or organizations pursuant to an agreement entered into under this bill. FISCAL EFFECT: Ongoing General Fund costs for the SOS to contact, as required by ERIC, all unregistered Californians identified by ERIC as eligible to register. These costs are estimated at $1.7 million to $2.5 million, in the first year, for four million to six million mailings. Subsequent mailings could decline significantly over time as more persons register. Partially offsetting these costs would be savings averaging around $220,000 annually from the SOS discontinuing a contract with the Employment Development Department to verify voter records against the National Change of Address database. The SOS would also have one-time General Fund costs of $55,000 to promulgate regulations and $25,000 for the initial membership fee with ERIC. Subsequent annual dues to ERIC would be an additional $50,000. COMMENTS: AB 2433 Page 3 1)Background. ERIC is a non-profit organization with the mission of assisting states to improve the accuracy of America's voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens. With the assistance of the PEW Charitable Trust, ERIC was formed in 2013 and is owned, governed, and funded by the states that choose to join. As of December 2015, Washington D.C. and 15 states are members of ERIC. According to information provided on the ERIC website, the ERIC data center allows states to securely and safely compare voter data, thereby improving the accuracy of the voter rolls. States that choose to participate in ERIC are able to compare information on eligible voters from official data sources submitted by the states. Each member state submits at a minimum its voter registration and motor vehicle department's data. These records go through a data-matching exchange that crosschecks the information against lists from other member states as well as other data sources. ERIC then reports back to the states where there is a "highly confident match" indicating a voter moved or died, or the existence of a duplicate record. Once states receive the reports they can then begin the process to clean up the voter rolls, subject to state and federal law. Participating states also receive information on unregistered individuals who are potentially eligible to vote, which allows them to reach out to those citizens to encourage them to register to vote. 2)Purpose. The author cites a report issued by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which was established in 2013 by Executive Order with the mission to identify best practices in election administration and to make recommendations to improve the voting experience. One of the main recommendations reported by the Commission focused on voter registration, specifically voter roll accuracy. In an effort to increase the accuracy of voter rolls, the Commission's report, in part, recommended that interstate AB 2433 Page 4 exchanges of voter registration information should be expanded. 3)Current Voter Registration Maintenance. In March, California deployed its new statewide voter registration system, called VoteCal, which, in part, will 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. In addition to VoteCal, California has numerous other processes for removing duplicate voter records, deceased voters, felons, and people who have moved. These checks are conducted with data from federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the United States Post Office National Change of Address Program. California also checks voter registration data against information from Department of Vital Statistics, DMV, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Department of Health Services. In addition, all county elections officials receive reports from superior courts of individuals convicted of felonies. 4)Change in Privacy Policy. Current law requires voters' California driver's license numbers, social security numbers, and signatures to be kept strictly confidential and not disclosed. Since participation in ERIC would include this as part of the information about the state's 17 million voters that the SOS would have to provide, this bill changes state policy of protecting certain personal identifying voter information from disclosure. 5)Opposition. The American Civil Liberties Union opposes the bill based on privacy concerns. AB 2433 Page 5 Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081