BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1415
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 21, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
AB 1415 (Adams) - As Amended: April 13, 2009
SUBJECT : Elections: voting procedures.
SUMMARY : Imposes various new limits and restrictions on voting.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Prohibits a person who is on probation for the conviction of a
felony from registering to vote. Requires elections
officials, when canceling the affidavits of registration of
voters who are imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a
felony, to cancel the affidavits of registration of voters who
are on probation for the conviction of a felony.
2)Requires a voter who is returning a vote by mail (VBM) ballot
to provide the last four digits of his or her California
driver's license number or California identification card
number or, if the voter has neither, the last four digits of
his or her Social Security Number (SSN) on the VBM ballot
identification envelope. Prohibits an elections official from
counting a VBM ballot unless the voter's signature and numeric
identifying information are consistent with the voter's state
or federal records.
3)Requires the VBM ballot identification envelope to contain a
security flap or sleeve to conceal the voter's signature and
the last four digits of his or her driver's license number,
identification card number, or SSN during mailing.
4)Exempts a ballot cast by a member of the military who is
absent from the place of residence where he or she is
otherwise qualified to vote from the requirement that VBM
ballots be received by the close of the polls on election day
in order to be counted. Provides that such a ballot will be
counted if it is received by the 21st day after the election
and is postmarked or signed and dated by election day.
5)Requires a voter to present proof of identification prior to
receiving a ballot at the polls on election day. Requires the
proof of identification to satisfy all of the following
requirements:
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a) The document shows the name of the individual to whom
the document was issued, and the name conforms to the name
in the individual's voter registration record;
b) The document shows a photograph of the individual
presenting the identification;
c) The document includes an expiration date, and the
document is not expired at the time of voting or expired
less than two years prior to the general election; and,
d) The document was issued by the United States or the
State of California or is a valid tribal member
identification card issued by an Indian tribe recognized by
the United States government.
6)Provides that if a voter is unable to or refuses to provide
proof of identification at the polling place on election day,
the voter may execute a declaration under penalty of perjury
that he or she is registered to vote. Provides that upon
execution of such a declaration, the voter shall be provided a
provisional ballot with an envelope to be completed in the
same manner as a VBM ballot identification envelope.
7)Requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to waive the fee for
an original or replacement identification card for any person
who requests the card for the purposes of complying with the
requirements of this bill.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes a member of the precinct board to challenge the
ability of a person to vote on various grounds, including that
the voter is not the person whose name appears on the index,
is not a precinct resident, is not a U.S. citizen, has already
voted on that day, or is on parole for the conviction of a
felony.
2)Provides that a United States citizen who is 18 years of age
and a resident in this State may vote. Requires the
Legislature to provide for the disqualification of electors
while mentally incompetent or imprisoned or on parole for the
conviction of a felony. Prohibits a person who is in prison
or on parole for the conviction of a felony from registering
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to vote.
3)Requires all VBM ballots to be received by the elections
official from whom they were obtained or by the precinct board
no later than the close of polls on election day in order to
be counted.
4)Prohibits a VBM ballot from being counted unless the signature
on the VBM ballot identification envelope matches that voter's
signature on his or her affidavit of registration.
5)Makes fraud or the attempt to commit fraud in connection with
any vote cast a felony, punishable by imprisonment for up to
three years.
6)Requires a person to pay a fee of $24 to obtain a California
identification card, with certain exceptions.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. State-mandated local program; contains
a crimes and infractions disclaimer; contains reimbursement
direction.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
The right to vote is a precious liberty guaranteed by the
U.S. and California Constitutions. However, the integrity
of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility
of elections as access to it. Voters are disenfranchised
by the counting of improperly cast ballots, and their civil
rights are violated just as surely as if they were
prevented from voting.
Unfortunately, California's current system of elections
serves as an open invitation to fraud, and is urgently in
need of reform. One of the major problems with
California's existing voter registration procedures is the
absence of safeguards to ensure that non-eligible persons,
such as foreign citizens, convicted felons, and fictitious
persons, do not vote.
First, voters need not show any proof of identity when
registering to vote. Voters state in their registration
that they are eligible, but there is no background check.
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Second, they are asked to give a driver's license or ID
number on the voter registration form, but if they do not,
they are still registered to vote. Thus, there is no
assurance that the name on the registration card is a real
person, or that the person is lawfully entitled to vote.
Further, since there is no requirement to show ID, there is
no assurance that the person who appears at a polling place
is actually the person he or she claims to be.
Moreover, the most likely avenue for voter fraud today is
in mail balloting, which offers far more opportunities for
abuse than the traditional polling place because of the
separation of both ballot and voter from the polling place,
with all of its integrity and privacy protections. Mail
ballots are inherently problematic because there is no way
of knowing who actually fills them out. In addition,
ballots could be stolen from mail boxes, either before or
after they have been voted.
In 2005, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election
Reform issued a number of suggestions to strengthen the
country's electoral system, including a recommendation to
require voters to present a photo-ID card at the polls.
The Commission noted that:
"A good registration list will ensure that citizens are
only registered in one place, but elections officials still
need to make sure that the person arriving at the polling
site is the same one that is named on the voter
registration list. In the old days and in small towns
where everyone knows each other, voters did not need to
identify themselves. But in the United States, where 40
million people move each year, and in urban areas where
some people do not even know the people living in their own
apartment building, let alone their precinct, some form of
identification is needed." (Building Confidence in U.S.
Elections," Sept. 2005, p. 18)
AB 1415 will help safeguard our right to vote and instill
public confidence in the security and integrity of our
elections system, by requiring voters to show a photo ID at
the polls in order to receive a ballot, and to identify
themselves on their mail ballot return envelope. Voters
who cannot afford an ID card may receive a free California
ID in order to vote.
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It will also ensure that the votes of our brave service
members protecting our freedoms in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
elsewhere will not be disenfranchised due to slow mail
delivery, by allowing their ballots to count if they are
received by elections officials up to 21 days after the
election, so long as they are voted on or before Election
Day.
Finally, AB 1415 will close a loophole in existing law, by
clarifying that convicted felons who are on probation (in
addition to those in prison and on parole) may not vote
until they have completed their sentence.
2)Voter Fraud Prevention : The author argues that the current
procedures for a voter to announce his or her name, and
allowing a precinct board member to challenge a potential
voter, are insufficient to protect against voter fraud at the
polling place. However, the author has not provided any
evidence that voter fraud of the type that would be prevented
by a photo identification requirement is a problem in need of
a solution.
Furthermore, California law already requires the elections
official to compare the signature on a VBM ballot envelope
with the signature on that voter's affidavit of registration
before the VBM ballot may be counted. If those signatures do
not match, the ballot will not be counted. As such,
notwithstanding the author's concerns about fraudulent VBM
votes being cast, the need for requiring voters to provide
additional information on the VBM ballot envelope is unclear.
The author has provided no information to the committee to
indicate that the casting of fraudulent VBM ballots is a
problem in need of a solution. A person who casts a
fraudulent VBM ballot at an election can be charged with a
number of different felonies, any one of which is punishable
by up to three years in state prison. Given that a signature
comparison is already done on every VBM ballot before the
ballot is counted to protect against fraud, and given that
casting a fraudulent VBM ballot is a felony, it is unlikely
that VBM ballot fraud is widespread.
Finally, the committee is unaware of any empirical evidence that
suggests that voter fraud is a problem in California that is
in need of a solution. In fact, a May 2006 report
commissioned by the United States Election Assistance
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Commission, found that "more researchers find [voter fraud] to
be less of a problem than is commonly described in the
political debate," and that "[t]here is widespread but not
unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud,
or at least much less than is claimed, including voter
impersonation, 'dead' voters, noncitizen voting and felon
voters."
3)Will This Bill Disenfranchise Voters Due to Inadvertent
Errors ? While it seems unlikely that this bill will provide
any meaningful protection against fraud, it also seems likely
that one consequence of this bill will be the invalidation of
a number of legally cast ballots. For instance, if a voter
transposed two of the digits from his or her driver's license
number, identification card number, or SSN, his or her ballot
would be rejected under the provisions of this bill even if
the signature on the ballot was a match to the signature on
that voter's registration card. Similarly, to the extent that
a person neglected to provide the last four digits of his or
her driver's license number, identification card number, or
SSN, or failed to provide that information due to fear of
identity theft, this bill would require that the ballot be
invalidated even if there was no question that the ballot was
cast by the voter to whom it was issued.
4)Potential Constitutional Issue : Article II, Section 2 of the
California Constitution provides that "[a] United States
citizen 18 years of age and a resident in this state may
vote." Article II, Section 4 of the California Constitution
further provides that "[t]he Legislature shall prohibit
improper practices that affect elections and shall provide for
the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent or
imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony."
It could be argued that a constitutional amendment is required
to achieve the author's policy objectives with respect to
prohibiting people who are on probation for the conviction of
a felony from voting. The California Constitution guarantees
the right to vote of citizens who are at least 18 years old
and who are residents of the state, but provides certain
circumstances under which the Legislature shall prohibit
people from voting. In the case of a voter who is not
"mentally incompetent or imprisoned or on parole for the
conviction of a felony," it could be argued that Article II,
Section 2 of the Constitution guarantees that voter's right to
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vote. As such, it is unclear whether the Legislature has the
authority by statute to prohibit a person who is on felony
probation from registering to vote or voting.
5)Significant Increase in Disenfranchised Population : If
enacted, this bill will nearly double the number of
Californians who are prohibited from voting due to a felony
conviction. According to information from the state Criminal
Justice Statistics Center, in 2006, there were approximately
171,000 people in prison in California for conviction of a
felony, with another 120,000 on parole for conviction of a
felony. That same year, there were almost 269,000 people in
California on probation for a felony offense. Based on these
data, this bill would increase the population of Californians
who are prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction by
92 percent.
6)Breaking New Ground : If this bill passes, it will represent
the first time that California has allowed any ballot which
was received after election day to be counted. Florida's
experience with counting ballots that arrive after election
day shows that adopting such a policy can result in a vote
counting process fraught with uncertainty, ambiguity, and
unequal treatment of votes. In a review of overseas VBM
ballots that were counted in Florida in 2000, the New York
Times found that hundreds of ballots that arrived after
election day and were postmarked after the election were
improperly counted.
The committee should determine whether it wishes to break this
new policy ground, particularly given the potential for
problems similar to those experienced in Florida.
7)No Way to Know if a Voter is in the Military : There is
nothing on a VBM ballot application indicating the request was
made by military personnel, nor do voter registration forms
include a space on which an individual can indicate that he or
she is a member of the military. It would be difficult, if
not impossible, for elections officials to determine if a VBM
ballot received within the 21 day period after the election
was in fact from a member of the military.
8)Not Limited to Overseas Voters : Unlike many of the previous
legislative proposals to allow ballots to arrive after
election day and still be counted, this bill does not require
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a voter to be overseas in order for the extended deadline to
apply. Instead, the provisions of this bill apply to any
member of the armed forces who is an "absent uniformed
services voter" as that term is defined under federal law.
Federal law defines an "absent uniformed services voter" as "a
member of a uniformed service on active duty, who, by reason
of such active duty, is absent from the place of residence
where the member is otherwise qualified to vote." As such,
the provisions of this bill could apply to a member of the
military who is in California on election day if that voter
was on active duty at a military base that is outside the
county where the voter is registered to vote.
9)Military Voters Only : Under the provisions of this bill, a
VBM ballot from a military voter may arrive up to 21 days
after the election and still be counted, but a VBM ballot from
a non-military voter who is overseas would still have to be
received by the elections official by the close of polls on
election day in order to be counted. Thus, family members
living with enlisted members of the military overseas would
have to return their ballots by election day, as would
citizens representing the United States as employees at
embassies overseas and citizens serving in the Peace Corps
overseas.
10)Carter-Baker Commission : In support of this bill, the author
cites a passage from the Carter-Baker Commission (Commission)
report, arguing that voters should be required to show
identification before receiving a ballot as a measure to
combat fraud.
Although the Commission found that "[t]here is no evidence of
extensive fraud in U.S. elections or of multiple voting," the
commission nonetheless proposed requiring voters to show
identification before receiving a ballot. However, the
specific voter identification proposal contained in the
Commission report differs significantly from the approach
proposed by this bill. In fact, the co-chairs of the
Commission (former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary
of State James A. Baker III) specifically opposed the
state-by-state approach advanced by this bill in an op-ed
printed in the New York Times just days after the release of
the Commission report. Instead, the Commission proposed
requiring voters to present the Real ID card - a standardized
driver's license mandated by federal law - but only if the
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states also "assume the responsibility to seek out citizens to
. . . register voters." This bill fails to implement a reform
that the Commission believed was necessary to keep an
identification requirement from being implemented in a
discriminatory manner.
11)Arguments in Opposition : According to the American Civil
Liberties Union:
Disenfranchising probationers has no proven
justification and is harmful for our democracy and
community. Voting is a hallmark of democracy.
Taxpaying citizens deserve a say in their government
and voting is an essential part of citizenship.
Probationers who vote help make a community safer and
more vibrant. They also are more likely to give to
charity, volunteer, attend school board meetings, be
interested in politics, and cooperate with fellow
citizens on community affairs. In addition, research
shows that formerly incarcerated individuals who vote
are less likely to be re-arrested. Probationers who
vote contribute to our democracy and public safety.
Felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately
impact people of color. Counting those in prison and
on parole for a felony conviction, over 293,000
Californians were prohibited from voting as of January
2006, approximately 28% were African Americans. Yet
African Americans are less than seven percent of
California's total population and, as of 2000, were
only eight percent of the adult citizen population.
African Americans are disenfranchised at almost 10
times the rate of whites in this state. Similarly,
while Latinos consist of only 19 percent of the
California's citizen voting-age population, they are
36.5 percent (over 100,000) of those disenfranchised.
Disenfranchising probationers will increase this
disproportionate impact.
Second, requiring identification materials unfairly
disenfranchises eligible voters. Many individuals
never obtain a driver's license [or] identification
card because the documents necessary to receive one, a
birth certificate or social security card, can be lost
as a result of moving, fires, or other life events.
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Without easy access to technology and a permanent
address, obtaining these documents can be extremely
burdensome.
12)Related Legislation : There are four other bills that are
being heard in this committee today that collectively make up
the component parts of this bill. AB 1308 (Hagman) prohibits
a person who is on probation for conviction of a felony from
voting. AB 1356 (Bill Berryhill) requires a voter to present
photo identification before receiving a ballot at the polling
place. AB 1367 (Fletcher) allows VBM ballots from certain
members of the military to arrive up to 21 days after election
day and still be counted provided that the ballot is
postmarked or signed and dated by election day. AB 1424
(Knight) requires a completed VBM ballot identification
envelope to contain the last four digits of the voter's
California driver's license number, identification card
number, or SSN in order for that ballot to be counted.
Additionally, the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and
Constitutional Amendments Committee is hearing four bills
today that are similar to this bill or to components of it.
SB 370 (Runner) is substantially similar to this bill. SB 465
(Huff) requires a voter to present photo identification before
receiving a ballot at the polling place. SB 582 (Dutton)
allows ballots from certain military voters to arrive up to 21
days after the election and still be counted. SB 631
(Walters) prohibits a person who is on probation for
conviction of a felony from voting.
13)Related Initiative : This bill is substantially similar to a
statewide initiative that has been submitted to the Attorney
General (AG) for title and summary. That initiative has been
assigned tracking number 09-0005 by the AG.
14)Double-Referral : This bill has been double-referred to the
Assembly Transportation Committee. Due to upcoming committee
deadlines, if this bill is approved in committee today, it
would need to be heard in the Assembly Transportation
Committee next week. As such, in order to ensure that this
bill can be heard in both policy committees before the
upcoming deadline, if it is the author's or the committee's
desire to amend this bill, it should be passed out of
committee without being amended, but with the author's
commitment to amend the bill in the Assembly Transportation
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Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
All of Us or None
American Civil Liberties Union
Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality
California Immigrant Policy Center
Disability Rights California
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094