BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, REAPPORTIONMENT AND
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
BILL NO: SB 970 HEARING DATE: 4/6/10
AUTHOR: CORBETT ANALYSIS BY: Frances Tibon
Estoista
AMENDED: 3/11/10
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Preelection day voting
DESCRIPTION
Existing law generally requires voters who wish to vote and
who do not cast their ballots by mail to cast their ballot
at the precinct polling place on Election Day.
This bill creates the Preelection Day Voting Polling Places
Pilot Program.
This bill requires the Secretary of State (SOS), in
conjunction with the county elections officials, to
establish preelection day voting polling places on four
college campuses in the state, for at least one general
election from January 1, 2011, but prior to December 31,
2016, subject to the following conditions:
Two of the college campuses shall be within the
University of California. Both of the campuses selected
must have at least 20,000 registered students at the
time of selection.
Two of the college campuses shall be within the
California State University. Both of the campuses
selected must have at least 13,000 registered students
at the time of selection.
This bill requires each college campus selected to be a
preelection day voting polling place to serve as the
polling place for any voter that resides within the
county's jurisdiction.
This bill requires a preelection day voting polling place
to be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. during the five
business days prior to the date of the election and from 7
a.m. until 8 p.m. on the date of the election for voters to
cast their ballots.
This bill provides that a preelection day voting polling
place may not be established for any election other than a
general election as it applies to the pilot program.
This bill requires each county elections official who has a
preelection day voting polling place within his or her
jurisdiction during an election to report to the
Legislature and the SOS regarding the election within six
months after the date of the election. This pilot project
report shall include, at a minimum, statistics regarding
the cost of a preelection day voting polling place, the
turnout of voters at the preelection day voting polling
place, and any problems with preelection day polling place
voting that has been made known to the elections official.
The SOS, after receiving the reports from the county
elections officials, but not later than eight months after
the date of the election, shall report to the Legislature
regarding the ability to expand the preelection day voting
polling places program to other college campuses within the
state.
The pilot project created by this bill will remain in
effect only until December 31, 2016, and as of that date is
repealed.
BACKGROUND
Currently, elections officials are required to designate
polling places in each precinct within their jurisdiction
and each polling place can serve a maximum of 1,000 voters.
Existing law also allows elections officials wide
discretion when establishing polling places as well as the
ability to establish satellite voting locations - this
includes schools and other public buildings.
Feedback obtained from several counties with experience in
running polling places on colleges campuses indicated that
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while there is a convenience factor associated with running
a polling place on campus, such as getting students to work
at the poll site, ADA compliance, and convenience for
students with busy schedules and limited means of
transportation, there would also come with it high rates of
provisional voting, as many students would likely be
registered in their "home" county. There would be low
turnout from the student population during non-Presidential
election years; the facility may not always be the best
room for voting - sometimes sharing a room with another
event, or often the area or room with the highest foot
traffic isn't available. It was also noted that if voting
is taking place outside the normal building hours, or if
access outside 9am-5pm M-F is necessary, there's potential
of getting locked out. Storage of precinct supplies would
be problematic; there would be need for crowd control as
well as the usual parking issues for non-student voters.
COMMENTS
1. According to the author , SB 970 expands accessibility
for the electorate. Students who often may register for
the first time with their college campus address or who
may have re-registered as a part of a voter registration
drive will now have access to a polling place over
multiple days. Moreover, while the program places these
early voting centers on campus, these voting centers
will be available to the public at large. In dense
urban and suburban areas - which many UCs and CSUs are
located - this may serve not just a college community,
but the broader community as well.
The author also cites cost findings from a report (noted
in comment 2 below), that early voting centers showed to
be an affordable option, as the costs in the voting
centers demonstrated a 24% savings on a cost per vote
basis.
2. Improving Election Administration with Vote Centers:
Toward a National Model . A 2009 Pew Charitable
Foundation Report looked at a study launched in 2007 on
three Indiana counties comparing vote centers
(preelection voting day polling places), to traditional
precinct polling places. While it found there were cost
savings associated with operating these vote centers in
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high foot traffic areas, "...overall, the existence of
vote centers, in and of themselves, do not increase
voter turnout. Other factors such as highly competitive
electoral contests and well financed and organized GOTV
operations have much more to do with attracting more
people to the polls."
3. 2008 Survey of the Performance of American Elections .
This joint study conducted by the California Institute
of Technology, Harvard University and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology reported that ..."Lines were
shorter at polling places than they were at early voting
sites. Sixty-percent of those who voted early reported
waiting 10 minutes or less, compared with 73% who voted
at polling places on Election Day. At the other end of
the scale, 8% of those who voted at early polling
stations reported that they waited in line at least an
hour, compared with 4% of those who voted at precincts
on Election Day."
4. The California Association of Clerks and Election
Officials (CACEO) has submitted a letter of concern
including:
Mis-impression that an out-of-county registered
student may vote on campus, or return their
out-of-county vote-by-mail ballots at the vote center,
effectively disenfranchising them.
Ballot variations vary into the hundreds, and
because touch screen voting is not allowed by
counties at the polls, voluminous amounts of paper
ballots would be required to be housed at these vote
center sites.
Ballots are required to be counted with like
ballots by voting precinct; vote center ballots would
have to be segregated by precinct as many counties do
not print precinct numbers on ballots.
Secure maintenance of voting materials (voted and
unvoted ballots, rosters, lists of voters etc.) over a
five day period poses numerous issues, at best it
would be costly, at worst could jeopardize the outcome
of the election.
Tracking voters from out of the immediate precinct
would require automated equipment that counties do not
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have. There would be no way to update indices at the
polls on election day to ensure that voters who cast
ballots during the pre-election period did not return
to their regular polling place on election day to
vote.
Parking would continue to be a big issue. College
campuses are notorious for having the worst parking
situations. There is a charge for parking, or as is
often the case, no parking available.
5. Related legislation . AB 3024 (Wolk) of 2006 would have
authorized Solano County to conduct a pilot project
whereby the county elections official would establish
vote centers in lieu of polling places in each precinct.
The Governor vetoed AB 3024 stating: While the vote
center system may offer some advantages over the current
precinct-based voting system, the proposed pilot project
would reduce the number of voting locations by 80
percent, and thereby significantly increase the distance
that voters would have to travel in order to vote. This
burden would fall disproportionately on those who are
less mobile, frequently the poor, disabled, and elderly.
6. While there is little to no data available examining
preelection day voting polling places (vote centers) on
college campuses, it would seem a logical first step to
getting and keeping younger voters engaged in the voting
process would be to first educate them. Knowing how to
register, obtaining relevant deadline information, as
well as how to cast a ballot could be a helpful first
step in keeping this particular demographic involved in
this lifelong civic process.
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author
Support: California Teachers Association
California Young Democrats
New America Foundation
UAW Local 2865
Oppose: None received
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