BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2433
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Date of Hearing: May 18, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2433 (Travis Allen) - As Amended April 14, 2016
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|Policy |Elections and Redistricting |Vote:|7 - 0 |
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| |Privacy and Consumer | |8 - 1 |
| |Protection | | |
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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
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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:
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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
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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.
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Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081