BILL ANALYSIS
AB 787
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 787 (Hill)
As Amended June 1, 2009
Majority vote
ELECTIONS 7-0 APPROPRIATIONS 13-4
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|Ayes:|Fong, Adams, Bill |Ayes:|De Leon, Ammiano, Charles |
| |Berryhill, Coto, Mendoza, | |Calderon, Davis, Fuentes, |
| |Saldana, Swanson | |Hall, John A. Perez, Price |
| | | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Audra Strickland, |
| | | |Torlakson, Krekorian |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+---------------------------|
| | |Nays:|Nielsen, Duvall, Harkey, |
| | | |Miller |
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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 :
1)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.
2)Requires the elections official to use the most cost-effective
means available to notify the voter of the need for additional
postage.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, assuming that the notification would be made through
an insert accompanying the VBM ballot materials, and based on a
cost of $0.065 per ballot and applying the 5.7 million VBM
ballots sent out for the February 2008 primary, annual
reimbursable costs would be $370,000 if every county required
additional postage. To the extent, counties use less costly
means to notify voters, these costs would be significantly less.
In addition, costs would be offset somewhat for counties that
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did not have to reimburse the United States Postal Service
(USPS) for postage-due ballots. Finally, it is unlikely that
additional postage would be required in every county.
COMMENTS : 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 [2008], 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."
AB 1167 (Nava) of 2006, included the provisions of this bill,
but also included provisions that would have required each
county elections official to negotiate with the USPS to ensure
that all vote-by-mail ballots that were returned by voters were
delivered to the elections official, regardless of whether
sufficient postage was provided. AB 1167 was vetoed by the
Governor. 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."
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However, the Governor also indicated in his veto message that he
thought that the requirement for election officials to notify
vote-by-mail 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."
Analysis Prepared by : Lori Barber / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
FN: 0001331