BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1440|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1440
Author: Swanson (D)
Amended: 9/2/09 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ELECTIONS, REAP. & CONST. AMEND. COM : 5-0, 7/7/09
AYES: Hancock, Walters, DeSaulnier, Liu, Strickland
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 8-0, 8/17/09
AYES: Kehoe, Cox, Denham, Leno, Oropeza, Price, Walters,
Wolk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Corbett, Hancock, Runner, Wyland, Yee
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-0, 5/14/09 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Elections: provisional ballots
SOURCE : Secretary of State Debra Bowen
DIGEST : This bill requires a county elections official
to issue a provisional ballot, including any materials
necessary to process the ballot, to an emergency worker, as
defined. The bill requires the county elections official
to transmit the ballot to the county where the voter is
registered and would specify requirements for the ballot to
be counted and the ballot materials to be preserved.
Defines emergency worker as a person who is officially
engaged in responding to the proclaimed state of emergency
and whose vocation has been identified in the Governor's
executive order proclaiming the state of emergency.
CONTINUED
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Senate Floor Amendments of 9/2/09 add clarifying language
that provides for the issuance of an executive order
authorizing an emergency worker to cast a ballot outside of
his or her home precinct and also makes minor conforming
changes.
ANALYSIS : Existing law provides that at all elections, a
voter claiming to be properly registered but whose
qualification or entitlement to vote cannot be immediately
established is entitled to vote a provisional ballot.
Existing law provides that the provisional ballot of a
voter who is otherwise entitled to vote shall not be
rejected because the voter did not cast his or her ballot
in the precinct to which he or she was assigned by the
elections official. Existing law provides that if a
provisional ballot cast by the voter contains the same
candidates and measures on which the voter would have been
entitled to vote in his or her assigned precinct, the
elections official shall count the votes for the entire
ballot. However, if the ballot cast by the voter contains
candidates or measures on which the voter would not have
been entitled to vote in his or her assigned precinct, the
elections official will count only the votes for the
candidates and measures on which the voter was entitled to
vote in his or her assigned precinct.
This bill allows emergency personnel who are officially
engaged in responding to a state of emergency after a
disaster such as fire, earthquake, etc, to vote in an
election by casting a provisional ballot within any county
in California. "Emergency worker" is defined as a person
who is officially engaged in responding to the proclaimed
state of emergency and whose vocation has been identified
in an executive order proclaiming the state of emergency.
The county elections official who receives the provisional
ballot will be responsible for transmitting that ballot to
the county where the voter is registered to vote. The
ballot must be cast no later than the close of polls on
Election Day, and the county in which the ballot was cast
must forward it to the election official in the voter's
home county within 10 calendar days.
Very similar to this bill, in the fall of 1993 then
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Governor Pete Wilson issued an Executive Order W-69-93
declaring a state of emergency within the counties of Los
Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and
Ventura. The executive order temporarily suspended certain
portions of the Elections Code regarding absentee voters
and authorized elections officials to issue a provisional
ballot permitting a person officially engaged in responding
to the emergency to vote on all statewide measures
appearing on the November 2, 1993 Special Statewide
Election Ballot. Executive Order W-69-93 also specified
that upon return of a ballot by the voter by the close of
polls on election day, the elections official was required
to transmit for processing the ballot to the elections
official in the county where the voter was registered to
vote.
This bill is intended to ensure that emergency personnel
are not deprived of their right to vote during a Governor's
declared state emergency.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, actual
costs are unknown, and will depend on the extent and
frequency of the disaster, whether the disaster occurs
during an election period, and the number of personnel who
are not already registered as vote-by-mail voters.
Although it is possible that a huge disaster could occur
that would require thousands of emergency personnel to
transfer counties during an election period, the likelihood
and frequency of all of those factors occurring at the same
time is small. Further, counties would only incur costs to
the extent that the emergency worker had time to get to an
election precinct to cast a vote while in the midst of
extremely long work shifts. More than 3,000 workers would
need to cast provisional ballots under these circumstances
in order for the total reimbursable costs to exceed
$50,000.
SUPPORT : (Verified 9/2/09)
Secretary of State Debra Bowen (source)
California Professional Firefighters
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California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/19/09)
Governor's Office of Planning and Research
Department of Finance
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office,
"during a large-scale emergency, state mutual aid
agreements can require emergency personnel to respond to a
situation away from the county in which they are registered
to vote. If these voters have not requested, received, or
voted with a vote-by-mail ballot and/or do not return home
before Election Day, they will have no opportunity to vote.
This bill allows emergency personnel responding to a
Governor's declared state emergency to cast a provisional
ballot within any county inside California, regardless of
which county the voter is currently registered to vote."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The Department of Finance "is
opposed to this bill because it is not necessary. The
Governor has existing authority to address this issue, and
only one statewide election has occurred during a state of
emergency in the last 16 years."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill Berryhill,
Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Brownley,
Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro,
Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore,
Duvall, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong,
Fuller, Furutani, Galgiani, Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman,
Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman,
Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Krekorian, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie
Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande,
Niello, Nielsen, John A. Perez, V. Manuel Perez,
Portantino, Price, Ruskin, Salas, Silva, Skinner,
Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres,
Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, Bass
NO VOTE RECORDED: Ammiano, Fuentes, Gaines, Saldana, Smyth
DLW:nl 9/3/09 Senate Floor Analyses
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SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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