BILL ANALYSIS
AB 787
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 30, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
AB 787 (Hill) - As Amended: April 15, 2009
SUBJECT : State Commission on Juvenile Justice: report.
SUMMARY : Requires elections officials to notify voters of the
amount of postage that is necessary to return a vote by mail
(VBM) ballot if more than one first-class stamp is required.
Specifically, this bill requires the elections official, if he
or she determines that more than one first-class stamp or
equivalent postage is required to return a VBM ballot, to
provide a notification to the voter of how many first-class
stamps or equivalent postage is required.
EXISTING LAW :
1) Provides that all VBM ballots must be voted on or before the
day of the election and must be received by either the
elections official from whom it came or the precinct board
before the close of polls on election day.
2) Requires the elections official to deliver voting materials
to each qualified applicant for a VBM ballot, including an
identification envelope in which to return the VBM ballot
that contains the following:
a) A declaration, under penalty of perjury, stating that
the voter resides within the precinct in which he or she
is voting and is the person whose name appears on the
envelope;
b) The signature of the voter;
c) The residence address of the voter as shown on the
affidavit of registration;
d) The date of signing;
e) A warning plainly stamped or printed on it that the
voter must sign the envelope in his or her own
handwriting in order for the ballot to be counted;
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f) A statement that the voter has neither applied, nor
intends to apply, for a VBM ballot from any other
jurisdiction for the same election; and,
g) The name and signature of the person, if any,
authorized to return the VBM ballot.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. State-mandated local program; contains
reimbursement direction.
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COMMENTS :
1) Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
The number of Californians who vote by mail has swelled in
recent years. In the November 2000 General Election,
approximately 24% of the 11.1 million ballots were cast by
mail rather than at polling places. During the last
presidential election four years ago, 32.6% of the 12.6
million Californian ballots came in by mail. In the primary
elections in February and June of this year, 41.7% and
58.7% of ballots were cast by mail, respectively.
As more voters cast their ballots by mail, stamps are
becoming an election issue. During the November race,
election blogs throughout California were busy with
questions from voters who were worried that their ballot
was going to be returned due to lack of proper postage.
However, while local elections officials don't advertise
it, some counties in the state have arrangements with the
Postal Service to deliver ballots and other
election-related mail - even if it is short on stamps.
Despite this agreement, the idea is not to subsidize the
cost of a ballot.
AB 787 simply seeks to inform the voter of the postage
necessary for their ballot to be delivered to the
registrar's office and save local governments money.
2) Prior Legislation : AB 984 (Price) of 2008, would have
required elections officials to notify VBM voters when more
than one first-class stamp was required to return their VBM
ballot. This bill was held on the Senate Appropriations
Committee's suspense file.
AB 1167 (Nava), which was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger,
would have required county elections officials to negotiate
with the United States Postal Service to ensure that all VBM
ballots would be delivered regardless of whether sufficient
postage was provided and required elections officials to
provide a notice to VBM voters when more than one first-class
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stamp was required to return their VBM ballot. In his veto
message, the Governor indicated that he was vetoing the bill
because he "cannot support the provision of this bill that
requires local election officials to negotiate with the
United States Postal Service to ensure all [vote-by-mail]
ballots are delivered even if they have insufficient
postage." The Governor expressed his concern that such a
provision was "unnecessary and fail[ed] to appropriately
recognize the responsibility of [vote-by-mail] voters to use
sufficient postage when returning their ballot."
However, the Governor also indicated in his veto message that
he thought that the requirement for election officials to
notify VBM voters if a ballot will require more than one
stamp to return in the mail was "a common sense proposal that
appropriately places shared responsibility on all parties."
3) Title : The current title of this bill refers to the prior
version of the bill. Although the title of the bill is
"State Commission on Juvenile Justice: report," the content
of the bill deals with VBM voting.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Lori Barber / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094