Election Bills Signed Into Law : September 2021
On Monday, our Governor signed into law a raft of elections bills passed by the Legislature in the recently-ended session. Here’s a rundown of the bills he signed:
AB 37: Universal permanent vote-by-mail
Before 1978, when registering to vote in California, you had to prove one of several possible excuses to request an “absentee ballot”; otherwise, you had to vote in person. In 1978, California did away with requiring excuses and made the ability to request an “absentee ballot” available to all voters. From 2001 to 2003, California added the option to register as a “permanent absent voter” (if you’ve ever been canvassing and seen a voter on your itinerary listed as “PAV”, that’s what that means), nowadays generally called “permanent vote-by-mail”. Voters who so registered always got a ballot mailed to them, without having to ask each time.
The percentage of voters who’ve voted by mail has steadily climbed. Voters know that they’re more likely to vote—and to vote earlier—when they get their real ballot mailed to them, can vote securely in the privacy of their own home, and can mail or drop off their ballot whenever they see fit (as long as they mail before the last day).
In 2020, as one of the state’s measures to mitigate the covid pandemic, the Governor issued an Executive Order making all elections in 2020—a Presidential election year—all-vote-by-mail. Starting that year, every voter in California got to experience voting the way those of us who checked that box have been doing it for years.
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed SB 29, which extended universal vote-by-mail by another year. That’s how we were able to all vote by mail in the recall election—but it was still temporary, set to expire on January 1.
And now, with AB 37, universal vote-by-mail is permanent in the state of California. Every voter will get their real ballot in their mail, to cast as they see fit: mail it back, put it in a drop box, or drop it off at a polling place or vote center.
From now on, when you see announcement of an election coming on “June this” or “November that”, subtract one month and look for your ballot in your mail around then. As soon as you get it, you should have an entire month to vote—take your time, break it up over multiple days if you need to, and make your plan for how you’ll turn it in.
And don’t forget to track your ballot via SF’s Voter Portal or the state’s Where’s My Ballot? tool afterward!
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
AB 319: Prohibiting foreign interference in our elections
To quote the legislative counsel’s digest:
The act prohibits a foreign government or principal, as defined, from making a contribution or expenditure in connection with a ballot measure. The act also prohibits a person or committee from soliciting or accepting a contribution from a foreign government or principal for this purpose.
This bill would expand this prohibition to include contributions and expenditures in connection with an election of a candidate to state or local office.
Under this law, foreign persons, governments, corporations, political parties, etc. are banned from making expenditures to pass or defeat ballot measures in our elections.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
AB 796: Shoring up our Automatic Voter Registration program
The ACLU has a fact sheet which filled in a lot of background on this one.
Since 2018, the state has had automatic voter registration. Unfortunately, the state’s implementation had some problems that failed to rectify problems that had put the state in violation of federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) since 2015.
The state settled a lawsuit with the League of Women Voters in 2018, and that settlement was later extended to 2022. This law basically codifies the terms of that settlement in law, making permanent some accountability mechanisms that ensure the DMV and Secretary of State’s office are implementing Automatic Voter Registration correctly and registering new voters timely.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
AB 1367: Sharper teeth for the Political Reform Act
The Political Reform Act is a 1974 law that creates a lot of the systems our state has for keeping elections fair and transparent, including restrictions and requirements on campaign committees and independent expenditures. Among other things, it creates the Fair Political Practices Commission, or FPPC.
Under this law, it will now be illegal for a candidate or politician to spend $10,000 or more of campaign funds for “direct personal benefit”. Anyone who violates this restriction will be liable to be sued by the FPPC for up to twice the amount spent.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
AB 1495: Reforming the Governor’s authority to appoint US Senators
Actually, this bill does a couple of things, but that’s the big one.
One of the reasons we worried so much about this year’s recall election is that, in California, the Governor has the power to appoint a Senator when there’s a vacancy. If Senator Feinstein were to be unable to serve out the rest of her term for any reason, the Governor would unilaterally appoint her successor, with no confirmation of any kind. That would be a terrible power to have fall into Republican hands—they control more than enough of the Senate already, thank you very much.
The Governor still appoints a Senator’s successor, but this bill makes the appointment subject to voter confirmation: The appointee will serve until the next primary and general election, at which point they can run to keep the seat. If that’s too close, they get to keep the seat until the next primary and general election after that. Either way, if the term would’ve expired by then, the Governor can order a special primary and general election.
The other thing this bill does pertains to some special requirements for LA County on the order of races on their ballots. (It’s not immediately clear what that’s about, but it’s amending something already on the books.)
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
AB 1590: Requiring a yearly fee from political committees
The Political Reform Act requires the Secretary of State’s office to charge campaign committees a fee of $50 per year. Previously, the Fair Political Practices Commission was charged with enforcement; now, the Secretary of State’s office will enforce the fee requirement itself. It also clarifies that the penalty for non-payment is $150 (previously “three times the amount of the fee”).
The bill also fixes a typo in the Government Code, citing section 9001 rather than 9002 of the Elections Code.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
SB 35: Kind of a grab bag
There are not one but three different elections reforms all rolled into SB 35.
1. Lengthens the deadline for tax returns required for candidacy for Governor
Candidates get ten more days to submit tax returns so they can qualify for the primary ballot.
Also, the Secretary of State is required to notify candidates of things that aren’t redacted but must be, in addition to things that are redacted and mustn’t be, and clarifies that they have until 78 days before election day to submit the corrected returns.
2. Adds more activities to the prohibition on electioneering
“Electioneering” is trying to influence an election; it’s illegal to do this within 100 feet of a polling place, drop box, or other place where a voter can turn in their ballot.
Newly prohibited as electioneering are:
Soliciting a vote
Speaking to voters about marking their ballots
Disseminating “visible or audible electioneering information”
Obstructing ingress, egress, or parking at such a location
3. Bans fake ballot drop boxes
It’s now expressly illegal to set up drop boxes marked as “official” or otherwise pretending to be a ballot drop box that weren’t actually set up by the county elections office.
The California Republican Party had set up unofficial drop boxes last year as part of their “ballot harvesting” program, some of which were even labeled “OFFICIAL BALLOT DROP BOX”. The state Attorney General’s office told them to knock it off; ultimately, the Republicans agreed not to pass their boxes off as “official” (while passing the buck to “overzealous” volunteers), and the AG’s office dropped their lawsuit.
State law on this was somewhat hazy at the time; not anymore.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
SB 503: Verification of ballot envelopes
There are a few things here, too, though with a common thread between them.
1. Signature verification
When you turn in the ballot you were mailed, one critical step—we really can’t say it enough times—is: SIGN YOUR RETURN ENVELOPE!!!!!!
Seriously, it’s that important. Nearly 800 ballots from SF were challenged in the recent recall election (and are pending curing by the voter) because the return envelope was unsigned or the signature didn’t match any of the voter’s signatures on file.
(On a related note, if you got a letter from the Department of Elections in the last couple of weeks? Open it! It’s important! You have until Tuesday, October 12th!)
California law governs how elections officials verify signatures, and what they do when a signature doesn’t match. SB 503 further increases the bias in favor of “yes, they match”—signatures have to be really obviously and objectively different, to the satisfaction of three elections officials, to be rejected. Officials aren’t allowed to “review or consider a voter’s party preference, race, or ethnicity” in making comparisons.
2. Postage-paid envelope for signature verification
If your signature does get challenged, your county elections department will ask you to fill out a signature verification form and mail it back.
SB 503 requires the county to provide a postage-paid return envelope for that form, same as they do for your allot.
3. Reporting of ballot challenge grounds
Our Department of Elections has a public webpage breaking out the numbers of each challenge reason for each election, but most counties don’t have anything like this.
SB 503 requires counties to provide a similar report to the Secretary of State’s office. It doesn’t require that data to be made public, but we hope it will be—it’s been tremendously informative as to what information voters may be missing.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
SB 594: Accommodating the extended state redistricting deadline
As you may remember from last year’s census outreach, redistricting is happening this year, as it does every ten years. Starting next year, we’ll have brand-new maps of state Assembly, state Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Board of Equalization districts.
Normally, the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission would have until August 15 to complete the drawing of district lines. Because the Census Bureau’s data release was delayed on account of the pandemic, the state Supreme Court has extended that deadline to December 15, possibly even later.
This throws a wrench in the timeline for next year’s primary election, as parts of it assumes the lines are already drawn by now.
SB 594 adjusts the parameters of next year’s primary to accommodate the schedule slippage.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.
SB 686: Requiring LLCs acting as campaign committees to disclose their owners
We’ll just quote SB 686’s summary:
This bill would require a limited liability company that qualifies as a committee or a sponsor of a committee under the act, as specified, to file a statement of members with the Secretary of State. The bill would require the statement of members to include certain information about the limited liability company, including a list of all persons who have a membership interest in the limited liability company of at least 10% or who made a cumulative capital contribution of at least $10,000 to the limited liability company after it qualified as a committee or sponsor of a committee, or within the 12 months before it qualified.
It sounds like this closes a loophole where LLCs could act as dark-money shrouds. Not anymore.
How our Legislators voted: Asm. Chiu, Asm. Ting, and Sen. Wiener all voted aye.