This week, California Governor Jerry Brown approved two new election bills in an effort to “promote and encourage” voter registration of its citizens. In a state where only 68 percent of eligible citizens are actually registered to vote, this is great news.
On Monday, Gov. Brown approved online voter registration bill AB 1357 as well as AB 84, a bill to allow new citizens who become naturalized within 15 days of an election to register to vote up to and on Election Day.
California already has a policy to provide online voter registration, but it will not go into effect until the state complies with the requirements to maintain a statewide voter registration database under the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Assembly Bill 1357 allows counties to work around this hurdle by working with the secretary of state to run county-wide voter registration databases. Although the bill has language to expand paper registration efforts (see below), it excludes third-party organizations from using online voter registration Web sites for the purpose or running voter registration drives.
The omnibus bill additionally states the legislature’s intent to direct the election board of each county to “promote and encourage” vote registration by:
-establishing a “sufficient number of registration places throughout the county.”
-enlisting the support and cooperation of interested citizens and organizations to be deputized as registrars who may help register voters anywhere in the county, including places of residence.
– minimizing obstacles to registration by non-English-speaking citizens: in counties where three percent or more of the voting age residents are non-English speakers, the county elections official must make reasonable efforts to recruit deputy registrars who are fluent in both English and the language used by citizens.
– making various additions to the state voter registration card, including a toll-free hotline telephone number maintained by the secretary of state to report fraudulent activity.
2 Responses to “California Governor Approves Voter Registration Bills”
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You state above that:
“Although the bill has language to expand paper registration efforts (see below), it EXEMPTS third-party organizations from using online voter registration Web sites for the purpose or running voter registration drives.”
I have capitalized “exempts” because I wonder what that means. Does it mean 3p organizations (like my Santa Rosa Democratic Club) could do our own online voter registration drive? Or does it mean that 3p organizations are PROHIBITED FROM using online voter reg web site for voter registration drives?
Good question. The law states that online voter registration is for “individual” use, so it’s unclear if that means third party groups, such as your group, would be “prohibited” from running an online drive. Here’s the language from the bill’s amendments to Section 2157: “Affidavits of registration provided on the Internet Web site of a county or of the Secretary of State shall be for individual use only and not for use by organizations seeking to register people to vote pursuant to Section 2158.”
P.S. I changed the wording to make more sense. I hope this helps!