October 04, 2006

Election Bills Signed by the Governor

The following election-related bills have been signed by the Governor and will become effective January 1, 2007:

AB 2430: Requires the Secretary of State to provide a translation of the ballot title and condensed statement of the ballot title to the local election official whenever the Voting Rights Act requires that a translation be provided, and requires the local election official to use that translation in the sample ballot and on the official ballot.

AB 2769: Provides that the mandatory 1% manual tally of ballots include absent voters' ballots.

AB 2770: Requires that for any statewide election or certain special elections, votes cast by absentee ballot and votes cast at the polling place be tabulated by precinct.

AB 3059, 3061, 3062, 3063: These bills were sponsored by the Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting and generally involve clean-up or technical changes.

SB 1258: Requires that if the nomination documents for an incumbent members of Congress are not delivered by 5 p.m. on the 88th day before the direct primary election, any person other than the person who was the incumbent on the 88th day has until 5 p.m. on the 83rd day before the election to file nomination documents for that office.
This bill would add congressional candidates to these
provisions.

SB 1276: This an omnibus clean-up bill by the Senate Committee on Elections.

SB 1348: Requires paid voter registration circulators to provide their name, address, and other information to those they are registering, and makes it a misdemeanor to violate this provision. Also makes it a misdemeanor for a person to misrepresent himself or herself as having assisted a voter to register when another person actuall provided the assistance.

SB 1519: Requires the Secretary of State to adopt regulations no later than January 1, 2008, for each voting system approved for use in the state, and specify the procedures for recounting ballots using those systems.

SB 1654: Authorizes delivery of an absentee ballot to the absentee voter’s child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling, or a person residing in the same household as the absent voter, who is 16 years of age or older.

SB 1725: Requires election officials to establish procedures to track and confirm the receipt of voted absentee ballots and to make this information available to the voter by way of the internet or toll free telephone. This appears to be similar to a requirement imposed by HAVA for provisional ballots.

SB 1747: Authorizes each qualified political party and any bona fide association of citizens or a media organization to employ not more than 2 representatives to be present at the central counting place, provided that the election official may limit the total number of representatives to no more than 10.

SB 1760: Prohibits the Secretary of State from approving any voting system, including a direct recording electronic voting system, unless the paper used for its voter verified paper audit trail is of sufficient quality that it maintains its integrity and readability throughout the required retention period.

Posted by Randy Riddle at October 4, 2006 01:48 PM