BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1531 (Portantino)
Hearing Date: 08/12/2010 Amended: 06/23/2010
Consultant: Maureen Ortiz Policy Vote: ER&CA 3-1
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 1531 establishes one-stop voting to enable a
person to register to vote, and immediately vote a ballot, at
any office of a county elections official.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
SOS regulations $25
General
County elections officials: ------unknown, at least
$250------ General*
* State Mandated Local Program
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE.
Under the provisions of AB 1531, a person who wishes to register
and vote at the same time will need to complete an affidavit of
registration and present proof of identity and current
residence. If proof of identity and residence can not be
provided, the person will be able to register and vote by
provisional ballot. One-stop voting will be required at every
permanent office of a county elections official beginning
January 1 of the year following the availability of VoteCal.
Each location would be required to have a separate area for
one-stop voting and at least one precinct board member who is
trained in the proper procedures.
AB 1531 requires each county elections official to compile an
index of voters who register to vote by one-stop voting; and
then to review the names on the index and cancel duplicate
registrations. It also requires counties to notify the district
attorney and the Secretary of State if it appears that a person
has engaged in fraudulent voting. The provisions of AB 1531
constitute a state mandated reimbursable program. Although
exact costs are unknown, if each county incurred expenses of
only $5,000, the total costs of this bill will exceed $250,000
per election. Costs would be incurred for staffing the polling
places, printing sufficient ballots so that each type is
available at every one-stop voting location, securitizing the
materials, and training pollworkers.
In addition, although the bill does not specifically require an
outreach program, the Secretary of State and local elections
officials will incur some unknown costs to educate electors on
the one-stop voting program.
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AB 1531 (Portantino)
Under current law, a person may not vote in an election unless
his or her affidavit of registration is executed and received by
the county elections official on or before the 15th day prior to
the election. An individual who becomes a new United States
citizen between 7 and 14 days before Election Day is allowed to
register to vote up to 7 days prior to the election. Any person
may register as a vote-by-mail (VBM) voter, and may also drop
their VBM ballot off at the office of the elections official
beginning 29 days before the election.
Existing law, pursuant to the federal Help America Vote Act of
2002, requires the Secretary of State to establish a statewide
voter registration database (known as VoteCal) that will serve
as the state's official voter file. VoteCal is currently
scheduled for full completion by February 2012. Among other
things, VoteCal will provide real time voter registration
processing, checks for duplicate voter registrations, identify
authentication, and online voter registration. It is currently
designed and intended to be available and accessible only at
permanent offices of county elections officials.
The Secretary of State would be authorized to adopt regulations
to implement one-stop registration and voting. For purposes of
one-stop registration and voting, proof of identity and proof of
current residence consists of either of the following:
1) A photo identification with a current name and address
including one of the following:
a) Driver's license or identification card issued by any state,
b) Passport,
c) Military identification card,
d) A photo identification card designated in the regulations of
the Secretary of State, as set forth in Section 20107 of Title 2
of the California Code of Regulations.
2) A photo identification without a current address from the
above list, and proof of current resident based on a document
that includes the name and current address of the individual
presenting it.
A person who provides the required identification, and whose
personal information has been successfully verified using
VoteCal will be eligible to vote using a regular ballot.
Otherwise, the elector must vote by provisional ballot and the
ballot will not be counted unless and until the elector's voter
registration is processed, verified and completed.
The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
(CACEO), while supporting the idea of one-stop voting, believes
that it may be premature and that waiting for the full
implementation of VoteCal to first evaluate its functionality
might be more practical.
Specifically, CACEO points out the following concerns with the
implementation of SB 1140 (Yee), a nearly identical bill:
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AB 1531 (Portantino)
a)There is currently no method of issuing a "regular" ballot in
the office of the Elections Official if that regular ballot is
dropped into a ballot box without being enclosed in an
identification envelope. Ballots must be reconciled as to the
numbers issued, and without a system in place to track the
issuance of ballots, it would be impossible to reconcile them.
b)Ballots are required to be counted with like ballots, by
voting precinct, so the voted regular ballots would somehow
have to be segregated by precinct since many counties do not
print precinct numbers on the ballots. Requiring all counties
to print precinct numbers on the ballots would be costly and
would increase the number of ballots required to be kept on
hand at each polling location. Los Angeles County, for
example, has approximately 5,000 precincts.
c)It would be difficult and expensive to keep regular voted and
unvoted ballots, rosters, list of voters, and other materials
secure during early voting periods at locations other than the
county office.
d)While supporting the concept of encouraging more people to
vote, large numbers of potential voters could overwhelm
election offices or early voting sites. In San Diego County,
voters waited up to five hours to vote at early voting sites
prior to the 2008 General Election.
e)A system would have to be developed to separate the ballots of
voters who could not properly be identified from the regular
vote by mail ballots to ensure that the former group does not
get counted despite the lack of identification.
Findings and Declarations in AB 1531 proclaim that California
currently ranks 41st out of 50 states in voter turnout, and that
one-stop voting can significantly increase turnout. The
following states have some form of Election Day voter
registration: Connecticut (for presidential elections only),
Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North
Carolina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
This bill is identical to SB 1140 (Yee) which is pending in the
Assembly Appropriations Committee.