BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 216
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Date of Hearing: August 29, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
AB 216 (Swanson) - As Amended: August 15, 2012
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
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|ASSEMBLY: | |(May 31, 2011) |SENATE: |25-12|(August 21, |
| | | | | |2012) |
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(vote not relevant)
SUBJECT : Voters: residency confirmation.
SUMMARY : Permits county elections officials to use
change-of-address information from consumer credit reporting
agencies, instead of using change-of-address information from
the United States Postal Service (USPS), for the purpose of
updating and maintaining the accuracy of voter registration
lists.
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of the bill,
and instead:
1)Permit a county elections official, when conducting a
pre-election residency confirmation procedure as required
pursuant to existing law, to contract with a consumer credit
reporting agency to obtain change-of-address data, in lieu of
mailing residency confirmation postcards or contracting with
the USPS to obtain postal service change-of-address data.
Require any such contract with a consumer credit reporting
agency to comply with the following conditions:
a) Require the elections official to provide the consumer
credit reporting agency with the name and residence address
of each registered voter in the county, except for the
names and addresses of registered voters whose
registrations are deemed confidential pursuant to specified
provisions of existing law;
b) Require the consumer credit reporting agency to search
its databases for each name and address provided by the
elections official and to report to the elections official
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any information indicating that the registered voter
changed his or her address; and,
c) Provide that the consumer credit reporting agency may
use the information provided by a county elections official
only for the purpose of searching its database and
reporting to the elections official as described above, and
prohibit the credit reporting agency from retaining any
information received from the county elections official.
2)Require a county elections official who contracts with a
consumer credit reporting agency pursuant to the provisions
outlined above to send a forwardable notice, as specified, to
each voter for which the official receives change-of-address
information from the credit reporting agency. Require the
notice to include a postage-paid and preaddressed return form
to allow the voter to verify or correct his or her address
information. Require the elections official to take the
following action with respect to a voter for which the
official receives change-of-address information from the
credit reporting agency:
a) If the voter responds to the notice mailed as specified
above, and indicates that he or she has moved to a new
address within the same county, update that voter's
registration with the new residence address if the voter's
signature on the returned notice matches the signature on
file for that voter;
b) If the voter responds to the notice mailed as specified
above, and indicates that he or she has moved to a new
address in another county, cancel that voter's registration
if the voter's signature on the returned notice matches the
signature on file for that voter; or,
c) If the voter does not respond to the notice mailed as
specified above, and does not otherwise verify in a signed
writing that he or she has moved to a new residence
address, take no action with respect to that voter's
registration.
3)Specify that a voter's registration may only be moved to the
inactive list of voters, and may not be canceled, if the voter
fails to vote in a specified number of elections and does not
respond to a specified residency confirmation mailing.
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4)Make technical and corresponding changes.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires each county elections official to conduct a
pre-election residency confirmation of registered voters
pursuant to one of the following procedures prior to each
primary election:
a) By mailing a non-forwardable postcard to each registered
voter in the county who has not voted at an election in the
six months preceding the start of the confirmation
procedure;
b) By contracting with the USPS to obtain use of the postal
service change-of-address data such as the National Change
of Address System (NCOA); or,
c) By including the return address of the elections
official's office along with the language "Address
Correction Requested" on the outside portion of the sample
ballot or sample ballot envelope mailed to voters at an
election conducted within the last six months before the
start of the confirmation process. If an elections
official uses this procedure for the pre-election residency
confirmation, it must confirm the addresses of voters who
were not eligible to vote at an election during the six
months preceding the start of the confirmation process, or
who were not mailed a sample ballot with an address
correction requested, by either mailing residency
confirmation postcards to those voters or by contracting
with the USPS to obtain change-of-address data.
2)Provides that the following actions shall be taken with
respect to information that the county elections official
receives as a result of the pre-election residency
confirmation process:
a) If the elections official does not receive any
information that would indicate that the voter has moved,
the official takes no action with respect to that voter's
registration.
b) If NCOA data indicates that the voter has moved and left
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no forwarding address, the voter's registration is placed
on the inactive list.
c) If a postcard or sample ballot is returned as
undeliverable and without a forwarding address, the
registration of that person is placed on the inactive list,
and the elections official must send the voter a
forwardable postcard asking the voter to confirm his or her
residence address.
i) If the voter does not reply to this forwardable
postcard, and the voter does not vote between the time of
that mailing and the second federal general election
conducted after that mailing, the voter's registration
may be canceled.
ii) If the voter replies to the forwardable postcard,
and indicates that he or she is still residing at the
same address, the voter's registration is moved back to
the active voter list.
iii) If the voter replies to the forwardable postcard,
and indicates that he or she has moved, and is now
residing at an address elsewhere in the same county, the
voter's registration is updated to that new address and
the registration is moved back to the active voter list.
iv) If the voter replies to the forwardable postcard,
and indicates that he or she has moved, and is now
residing at an address in a different county, the voter's
registration is canceled.
d) If the postcard or sample ballot is returned with a
forwarding address for the voter, or if the NCOA
information provides a forwarding address for the voter,
the elections official takes the following actions:
i) If the forwarding address is in the same county as
the address at which the voter is currently registered to
vote, the voter's registration address is updated by the
elections official to reflect the new address provided by
the post office, and the voter is mailed a postcard
indicating that the voter's registration will be changed
unless he or she notifies the elections official within
15 days that the change-of-address was not a change of
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the voter's permanent residence.
ii) If the forwarding address is not in the same county
as the address at which the voter is currently registered
to vote, the registration of that person is placed into
the inactive list, and the elections official must send
the voter a notice asking the voter to advise the
elections official whether the change-of-address is a
permanent change of residence or not, or to advise the
elections official if the change is incorrect.
(1) If the voter does not reply to this notice,
and the voter does not vote between the time of that
notice and the second federal general election
conducted after that notice, the voter's registration
may be canceled.
(2) If the voter replies to the notice, and
indicates that he or she is still residing at the same
address, the voter's registration is moved back to the
active voter list.
(3) If the voter replies to the notice, and
confirms that he or she has moved, but to an address
that is elsewhere in the same county, the voter's
registration is updated to that new address and the
registration is moved back to the active voter list.
(4) If the voter replies to the notice, and
confirms that he or she has moved to a different
county, the voter's registration is canceled.
3)Provides that voters who are on the inactive list of voters
shall not receive election materials and are not included in
calculations to determine the number of signatures required
for qualification of candidates and measures, precinct size,
or other election administration related processes.
4)Provides that any voter who has been placed on the inactive
list of voters and who offers to vote or who notifies the
elections official of a continued residency shall be removed
from the inactive list and placed on the active voter list.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill allowed the California
Community Colleges to receive full funding for courses offered
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in correctional institutions.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
Allowing counties to use credit bureau data in lieu of
USPS change-of-address data will reduce waste and save
California counties millions of dollars in the future,
because credit bureau change-of-address data is simply
more up-to-the-minute and comprehensive than USPS
data.
Before each election, elections officials must confirm
they have the most up-to-date address for each
registered voter in the county by using one of two
procedures to get the job done:
1. Mailing to All Registered Voters. Under this
method in California Elections Code (EC) section 2220,
elections officials send a postcard to each registered
voter to collect any address changes since the last
election. Because of the cost involved in mailing a
postcard to every voter, most elections officials do
not choose this option.
2. Using U.S. Postal Service Change-of-Address
Data. Under this method permitted in EC section 2222,
elections officials utilize change-of-address data
from the United States Postal Service (USPS) and send
a postcard only to those voters who appear to have
moved according to USPS National Change-of-Address
(NCOA) data?.
Major credit bureaus are widely considered the most
credible and reliable sources for up-to-date address
data for people living in the United States. This is
because people are far more likely to update their
address with their financial institutions than they
are with the USPS. This bill would give county
elections officials the option of using credit bureau
data in lieu of USPS data to get updated address
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information on voters before each election. Under this
bill, county elections officials who choose this
option would be required to:
Release only the names and addresses of each
registered voter to a consumer credit reporting
agency, as defined in Civil Code section
1785.2(d).
Send a forwardable postcard, similar to the
current postcard generated based on NCOA data, to
all voters who appear to have moved based on
matching data received from the credit reporting
agency.
Update voter addresses and remove voters who
have moved out of county, only after the voter
responds to the postcard by sending a signed,
written confirmation that the voter has moved and
wish to change their address or be removed from
the voter rolls.
The bill prohibits credit bureaus from retaining name
and address data received and permits elections
officials to receive only change-of-address data back
from the credit bureau. No sensitive data, such as
social security number or credit history, is shared in
either direction.
Orange County has tested and proved the dramatic cost
savings of this approach. In addition to complying
with current law, the county contracted with Experian
to check the addresses of 250,000 registered voters
and received 122,000 possible new addresses. The
county sent postcards to each and success was
overwhelming: 18,800 voters responded in writing
confirming their move and asking the county to update
their address information. This saved Orange County
over $44,000 in the first election alone - savings
that will grow with each passing election as the
county avoids repeatedly mailing materials to 18,800
out-of-date addresses. Orange County's full report on
this pilot can be viewed at www.OCvote.com.
1)Existing Voter File Maintenance Procedures : Under existing
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law, each county elections official is required to conduct a
pre-election residency confirmation procedure, as specified,
prior to each statewide primary election. Generally, county
elections officials comply with this requirement by mailing
nonforwardable residency confirmation postcards to registered
voters, or by contracting with the USPS to obtain
change-of-address information. State law also allows the
residency confirmation through the mailing of sample ballots,
under specified circumstances. If information received by the
elections official through the pre-election residency
confirmation procedure suggests that a voter has moved, the
registration of that voter may be canceled or updated, or the
voter's registration may be placed on the inactive list of
voters, depending on the type of information received by the
official. If an elections official does not receive any
information to suggest that a voter has moved as a result of
the pre-election residency confirmation procedure, the
registration of the voter is not affected.
In addition to these pre-election residency confirmation
procedures, voter registration lists are regularly updated
with information from death records from the Department of
Health Services and from county registrars of births and
deaths, lists of individuals convicted of felonies and
sentenced to prison from the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation and from federal courts, change-of-address
information and other voter information from the Department of
Motor Vehicles and other state and federal agencies,
notifications from other jurisdictions that a voter has
reregistered in a new location, receipt of official mailings
returned by the USPS as undeliverable, and direct notification
from individual voters that they have moved to another
jurisdiction or otherwise changed their registration
information.
2)Information from Government Entities vs. Information from
Private Third Parties : Generally, existing state law allows a
voter's registration to be canceled, or to be placed on the
inactive list for possible eventual cancelation, only when the
elections official receives information from a governmental
entity or from the voter himself or herself that indicates
that the voter has moved or otherwise should no longer appear
on the active list of voters. Information from private third
parties can be used by the elections official to identify
voters who may have moved for additional follow-up research,
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but the elections official cannot cancel a voter's
registration based solely on information from non-governmental
sources other than the voter. This bill maintains that
policy, allowing a county elections official to use
information from a private consumer credit reporting bureau to
do additional follow-up with voters who may have moved, but
prohibiting a voter's registration from being canceled solely
based on information from the credit bureau.
3)No Updates Unless Voter Responds : Under the pre-election
residency confirmation procedures that are used under existing
law, there are two ways in which the voter registration files
can be "cleaned-up." First, county elections officials can
update the voter rolls based on any affirmative response they
receive from a registered voter. The second way that these
procedures allow the voter rolls to be "cleaned-up," however,
is that for any voter for whom the county receives information
from USPS indicating that the voter has moved, but from whom
the county does not receive an affirmative response, the
county can put that person on the inactive list of voters, and
that voter's registration is canceled eventually if the voter
does not vote in the next two federal general elections.
On the other hand, as noted above, if a county were to use
change-of-address information from a consumer credit reporting
agency pursuant to the provisions of this bill for its
pre-election residency confirmation, the only way the voter
file gets "cleaned-up" is when a voter affirmatively responds
to a mailing that is sent out in response to change-of-address
information from the credit agency. This bill does not permit
any action to be taken with respect to a voter's registration
if the county elections official receives information from the
credit agency indicating that the voter has moved unless the
voter affirmatively responds to the mailing that is sent out
by the county elections official. For voters that don't
respond to such a mailing, the county elections official does
not have the option of canceling those registrations, nor does
the elections official have the option of placing those
registrations on the inactive list of voters. As a result,
even if the use of information from credit reporting agencies
allows county elections officials to receive a larger number
of valid addresses for voters than the use of NCOA data, it is
possible that a county using the procedure outlined by this
bill will have a larger number of voters who have moved, but
for whom the county is unable take any action with respect to
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those voter's registrations as a result of the pre-election
residency confirmation process. For some of the voters who
don't respond, the registration records will still be updated
when the elections official receives undeliverable election
materials that are returned by the postal service (including
sample ballots and vote by mail ballots), when the voter
registers to vote in another county, or when the voter updates
his or her address with the DMV. For other voters, however,
the pre-election residency confirmation process outlined in
this bill will result in those voters remaining on the active
list, even though the same voters would have had their
registrations moved to the inactive list of voters if the
county had used NCOA data or mailed preeelction residency
confirmation postcards pursuant to existing law.
4)Alternative Residency Confirmation Process : SB 1313
(Mountjoy), Chapter 5, Statutes of 1996, permits, but does not
require, a county to conduct an alternative residency
confirmation procedure for registered voters who have not
voted in recent elections. Under this procedure, a county
sends a forwardable postcard to every voter who has not voted
in the preceding four years with a request that the voter
confirm his or her residence address. If a voter returns the
postcard and confirms that he or she continues to live at the
same address, the voter's registration remains on the active
voter list. If a voter returns the postcard and indicates
that he or she has moved, that voter's registration is updated
to the voter's new address if the voter moved within the same
county, or is canceled if the voter moved to another county.
If the voter does not respond to the alternative residency
confirmation postcard, and the postcard is not returned to the
county, the voter's registration is moved to the inactive
list.
When a voter's registration is moved to the inactive list of
voters as the result of the alternative residency confirmation
process, a provision of state law provides that the voter's
registration may be canceled if the voter does not vote or
offer to vote between the time of the alternative residency
confirmation mailing and two federal general elections after
the mailing. Despite the fact that state law appears to allow
the cancelation of registrations in this circumstance,
however, in practice, registrations cannot be canceled when a
voter's registration has been placed on the inactive list of
voters as the result of the alternative residency confirmation
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process due to a possible conflict with federal law and due to
a stipulation between the state and the federal government.
In 1993, the federal government enacted the National Voter
Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, commonly referred to as
"motor voter," to make it easier for Americans to register to
vote and to remain registered to vote. Among other
provisions, NVRA prohibited a state from removing the name of
any person from the official list of voters registered to vote
in an election for federal office by reason of the person's
failure to vote. At the time the Legislature was considering
SB 1313, committee analyses in both houses indicated that the
bill could be inconsistent with this provision of the NVRA,
and one analysis noted that a federal court case that was
pending at the time was considering the issue of using a
"non-voting trigger" to send residency confirmation cards to
voters.
In October 1997, the United States filed a motion for further
relief in that court case. In its motion, the United States
contended that the alternative residency confirmation
procedure in California law was inconsistent with the NVRA, as
described above. In February 1998, the state of California,
without conceding that the alternative residency confirmation
procedure was contrary to the NVRA, entered into a stipulation
with the United States that prohibited the cancellation of the
registration of any voter who was moved to the inactive list
as a result of the alternative residency confirmation process.
To the committee staff's knowledge, this stipulation has not
been modified, and remains in effect.
Subsequent to the adoption of that stipulation, the federal Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 amended the provisions of the
NVRA that prohibit states from canceling voters' registrations
for failure to vote. Specifically, the NVRA now provides that
the prohibition against removing a name of a person from the
list of registered voters for failure to vote shall not be
construed to prohibit a state from using procedures outlined
in the NVRA to remove an individual from the official list of
voters if the individual has not responded to a specified
notice from the county elections official and does not vote
nor appear to vote in two or more consecutive federal general
elections. However, the specified procedures included in the
NVRA deal with change-of-address information supplied by the
USPS, and other voter registration file maintenance based on
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the grounds that registrants have changed residence. Because
the alternative residency confirmation procedure is not
triggered by any information that suggests that the voter has
moved, but rather is triggered entirely by a person's failure
to vote during a specified time period, it appears that the
alternative residency confirmation procedure may still be in
conflict with federal law, notwithstanding the amendments made
to the NVRA by HAVA. Furthermore, because the stipulation
described above remains in effect, the state continues to be
prohibited from canceling the registrations of voters based on
the alternative residency confirmation process, regardless of
whether such an action is permitted by the NVRA. In light of
this fact, notwithstanding the plain language of state
statute, under existing law, when a voter's registration is
placed on the inactive list of voters as a result of the
alternative residency confirmation procedure, that
registration cannot be canceled due to the voter's failure to
vote.
This bill amends the Elections Code to delete language that
allows a voter's registration to be canceled for failure to
vote when that registration has been placed on the inactive
list of registered voters as the result of the alternative
residency confirmation procedure, thereby conforming to
existing practice, as described above.
5)Prior Version : The prior version of this bill, which was
approved by the Assembly, dealt with funding for the
California Community Colleges. Those provisions were removed
from this bill in the Senate, and the current contents were
added. As a result, this bill has been re-referred to this
committee pursuant to Assembly Rule 77.2
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support Opposition
Secretary of State Debra Bowen (sponsor) None on file.
California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
California State Association of Counties
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
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