California: Orange County wants to overhaul the way we vote, but some say changes should wait | Orange County Register

A massive overhaul of how Orange County voters cast ballots will be considered Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, but some Republican leaders concerned about potential voter fraud want any changes postponed. Elections officials here and in other states that have implemented similar changes counter that by saying the upgrades make voting systems more secure. “There’s no better time to make these changes than now,” said Neal Kelley, county Registrar of Voters, who says the new approach would save the county between $10 million and $20 million. The “vote center” system he’s proposing would do away with the approximately 1,000 precinct polling places typically set up in the county for each election. Instead, the county would create new vote centers and distribute mail-in ballots to every registered voter.

California: County election officials say hundreds of voters in L.A.’s congressional race haven’t received their mail ballots | Los Angeles Times

With less than three days until the special congressional election in Los Angeles, hundreds of newly registered voters have not received the mail ballots they requested, county election officials say. More than 400 voters who registered as permanent mail voters between May 1 and May 31 have not gotten their ballots to vote, said Aaron Nevarez, a manager for governmental and legislative affairs at the L.A. County registrar’s office.

California: Trump wouldn’t release his tax returns, so lawmakers move to make it mandatory for California’s primary | Los Angeles Times

Legislation to require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to gain a spot on California’s presidential primary ballot won passage in the state Senate on Wednesday, but only after a tense debate that largely centered on President Trump. Senate Bill 149 was approved on a strict party-line vote, 27-13. The bill now moves to the state Assembly, and was one of the last bills debated during a marathon session at the state Capitol to consider bills before a Friday deadline for action. The bill would require presidential candidates to file copies of their income tax returns with state elections officials for the five most recent taxable years. Failure to do so would mean their name wouldn’t appear on California’s presidential primary ballot. The legislation was introduced in December, in the wake of Trump’s refusal to disclose his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. The president has continued to reject calls for the information.

California: Here’s why California officials want $450 million to upgrade elections technology | Press Enterprise

Imagine using a dial-up modem for Internet and VHS for entertainment in 2017. California elections officials say they face a similar situation with the technology used for a bedrock function of democracy. It’s why Secretary of State Alex Padilla supports a bill to raise $450 million through bonds to upgrade elections technology in California’s 58 counties. The bill, AB 668, passed the Assembly 56-19 on Wednesday, May 31. If it passes the Senate and is signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, California voters will decide whether to authorize the bonds in June 2018. Republicans argue the bill, known as the Voting Modernization Bond Act of 2018, is a costly and wrong-headed approach to upgrading elections systems. “The right to vote is our most important right,” said the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego. “But local election officials have to rely on equipment that is rapidly becoming outdated or obsolete.”

California: Assemblyman Evan Low Pushes to Lower State Voting Age to 17 | San Jose Inside

Evan Low knows about getting involved in politics at an early age. Elected to the state Assembly in 2014, he became the youngest Asian-American legislator in California’s history. Now he’s working to challenge another governmental age restriction: lowering the statewide voting age to 17. “I chair the elections committee,” Low (D-Campbell) told San Jose Inside. “My focus has been on the electoral process. As a millennial and a political science teacher, this issue is near and dear to me.”

California: Amid calls for investigation, Los Angeles certifies Skid Row election outcome | KPCC

Skid Row advocates say they hope to pursue “any and all legal action” to help keep their community’s effort to establish a neighborhood council alive. General Jeff Page, speaking for the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation committee, told KPCC Monday he did not agree with city officials’ decision on Friday to certify last month’s election results, when the Skid Row effort was defeated by less than 100 votes. “It’s a bunch of hogwash,” he said. “Right now we’re in the process of seeking legal representation to stand with us and overcome this travesty.”

California: A letter sent to some L.A. voters sought to shame them for their voting records — and no one knows who sent it | Los Angeles Times

Offended, harassed, violated. Those are some of the words voters used to describe their reactions to a letter they received this week from a group calling itself the California Voter Awareness Project. Several people who spoke to The Times said the letter arrived just hours before polls opened in Tuesday’s citywide election in Los Angeles, and included each recipient’s voting history in the last three elections, along with names and addresses of neighbors and acquaintances and whether or not they’d voted. An updated chart would be mailed out after Tuesday’s election, the letter warned, and “other people you know will all know who voted and who did not vote.”

California: There were serious problems in 2016 for some California voters who don’t speak English, new report says | Los Angeles Times

California voters with limited English language skills were too often left on their own when it came to getting help casting ballots last November, concludes a sweeping new survey based on eyewitness accounts logged by hundreds of election volunteers. The data raise significant questions about the effectiveness of a long-standing state election law designed to help those voters, and whether they will struggle more as counties are allowed to transition away from traditional neighborhood polling places. “We’re talking about huge chunks of the electorate that are in danger of being disenfranchised,” said Jonathan Stein, a staff attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-California.

California: Voting rights groups file a new DMV lawsuit, saying it’s still too hard for Californians to register to vote | Los Angeles Times

A two-year dispute over California’s Department of Motor Vehicles voter registration procedures has again landed the agency in court. On Tuesday, a coalition of voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit alleging DMV officials still require drivers renewing their registration by mail to fill out a separate card if they also want to register to vote. That separate step, the lawsuit said, violates the 1993 “Motor Voter” law passed by Congress. “It’s an embarrassment that in 2017, more than 20 years after the law was enacted, California DMV is still violating the law by making millions of people jump through hoops to become voters,” said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.

California: Noncitizens Will Soon Be Able To Vote In San Francisco — For School Board | WOSU

President Trump has often criticized San Francisco’s sanctuary policy for harboring people in the country unlawfully. Now the city is bracing for additional criticism from the federal government as it prepares to become the first city in the state and one of the first in the country to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Proposition N passed in November. It will allow noncitizens, including people in the country illegally, who have children in the city’s school district to vote in local school board elections. Supporters want to give immigrant parents more of a voice in how the city’s public schools are run.

California: Lawmakers vote for earlier primary elections | Associated Press

California may hold its presidential primary elections in March after lawmakers in both chambers of the Legislature passed bills Thursday to increase the influence of the nation’s largest and most diverse state. The state Senate passed a bill to move California’s primary from June to the third Tuesday in March. The state Assembly voted to move the primary to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. One of the bills must pass both houses and be signed by the governor for the date to change.

California: Moving to March primary gaining traction: Legislation on presidential races passes key Assembly committee | San Mateo Daily Journal

Legislation to elevate the political influence of one of the nation’s most populous states by bumping up California’s presidential primary received bipartisan support this week as it heads toward the Assembly floor. Assembly-man Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, seeks to move California’s typically June primary to the first Tuesday of March during presidential elections. On Wednesday, Mullin’s bill passed 6-1 through the Assembly’s Committee on Elections and Redistricting, garnering support and dissent from two Republicans. The goal is to provide California, the sixth largest economy in the world and where 1 in 8 U.S. voters resides, with a more influential role in deciding presidential nominations for both the Republican and Democratic parties, Mullin said.

California: Election officials support $450 million voting-equipment bond | The Sacramento Bee

California elections officials want state lawmakers to place a $450 million voting-equipment borrowing measure on the June 2018 ballot, saying that many counties’ voting machines rely on outdated equipment that make them vulnerable to breakdowns and hacking. The bond measure in Assembly Bill 668 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales Fletcher, D-San Diego, would be more than double the size of the last voting machine borrowing proposal to go on the ballot. In March 2002, voters approved Proposition 41, a $200 million bond prompted by disputed Florida presidential vote in 2000 that highlighted hanging chads and other voting equipment problems. Some of the machines purchased with Proposition 41 money later were decertified after state officials imposed new paper-trail requirements and other rules. Counties either retrofitted machines to bring them into compliance, or pulled older equipment back into use.

California: Lawmakers look to lower voting age | Associated Press

Donald Trump’s characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists during his presidential campaign angered Heidi Sainz, whose family is from Mexico and who has close friends who are immigrants. She was also upset that she couldn’t do anything about it at the ballot box because she was a year shy of being able to vote. Sainz favors a bill in the California Legislature that would lower the voting age to 17, which she thinks would give a voice to more people affected by the outcome of elections. “Looking at all the protests throughout this year throughout all the high schools across the nation, we could see a lot of the minors were protesting because they felt as if they didn’t have a voice,” said Sainz, a senior at Inderkum High School in Sacramento.

California: In narrow election, downtown votes against creating neighborhood council for skid row | Los Angeles Times

Downtown residents and business people narrowly defeated a proposal to form a separate neighborhood council for skid row, the city’s epicenter of homelessness, but the measure organizers said Friday that they would continue to press for a stronger voice for their community. People with ties to a broad swath of downtown interests voted 826 to 764 against a breakaway council for the 10,000 residents of skid row’s tents, renovated slum hotels and apartments, according to an unofficial tally. The results will not be certified until challenges or recount requests, if any, are resolved, according to Stephen Box, the director of outreach and communications for the L.A. Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.

California: Secretary of State wants primary election right after Iowa, New Hampshire | The Sacramento Bee

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla moved Tuesday to the forefront of a recurring effort to give statewide voters more influence in the presidential primary. Padilla, a Democrat from Los Angeles who is widely seen as a potential candidate for U.S. Senate, said he wants the state’s June 2020 presidential primary moved up to at least the third Tuesday in March, immediately behind Iowa and New Hampshire. Padilla is supporting state legislation, Senate Bill 568 by Sen. Ricardo Lara, that also would authorize the governor to bump up the primary even earlier if other states move up their primary elections.

California: A voting law meant to increase minority representation has generated many more lawsuits than seats for people of color | Los Angeles Times

Two years ago, the city of Palmdale settled a lawsuit alleging that its system of electing all four council members by citywide votes was rigged against Latinos and other minorities. In addition to a $4.5-million payout, the city agreed to scrap its “at large” voting system and create four separate council districts, including two with Latino majorities. The result? The city had one appointed Latino council member before the rules change. It still has just one, though that member was elected. Facing the threat of similar lawsuits under the California Voting Rights Act, several dozen cities across the state have switched from citywide elections in which all voters choose everyone on the council, to district elections in which geographically divided groups of voters each elect their own representative. And more are preparing to switch. But those efforts have so far failed to deliver a surge of Latino political representation inside California’s city halls.

California: Lawsuit: Santa Clara County Elections Run Afoul of Voting Rights Act | San Jose Inside

A new lawsuit claims the city of Santa Clara’s at-large elections violate state law by systematically discriminating against Asian-Americans. The city’s winner-take-all system dilutes minority votes and has prevented Asian-Americans from ever being elected to the City Council, according to the complaint filed last week by retired social worker Wes Mukoyama. In 2016 alone, five Asian-American candidates lost despite the fact that almost 40 percent of the city and a third of its electorate is of Asian descent. “Something is wrong when such a sizeable Asian-American population cannot elect candidates of its choice,” said Mukoyama, who’s represented by civil rights attorney Robert Rubin and the nonprofit Asian Law Alliance.

California: Here’s why California counties can ignore a half-dozen election laws | Los Angeles Times

In the partnership between state and county governments that underwrites California’s elections every two years, one of the partners has racked up a sizable IOU. Yes, it’s the state. And the running tab is almost $76 million. Whether that tab gets paid off, or keeps growing, is an open question. In the meantime, the unpaid bill means local officials can legally refuse to follow a half-dozen election laws. Small ones? Hardly. They could refuse to provide absentee ballots to anyone who wants one. Or perhaps even more provocative in the current election-integrity climate, they could refuse to use long-standing legal rules when asked to verify a voter’s signature on a provisional ballot. No money, no mandated services.

California: Report: State Still Short-Changing Counties for Election Costs | KQED

California’s state government should pick up the tab for more local election costs, according to a report released Thursday by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. California’s 58 counties currently shoulder the costs for federal and state elections, but don’t receive reliable payments to cover those costs. Towns, cities and school districts typically reimburse counties for carrying out their local elections. “The state has a clear interest in secure, timely, and uniform elections,” the LAO report says. “While the state reaps regular benefits from county elections administration, it only sporadically provides funding to counties for election activities.”

California: Santa Clara County: Election error audit in the works | San Jose Mercury News

Santa Clara County’s gaffe-plagued elections office has made one mistake too many for state officials. An Assembly committee Wednesday approved an audit of Santa Clara County’s Registrar of Voters office requested by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, who cited a litany of errors since 2010 from erroneous ballots to counting mishaps that could raise doubts about the validity of election results. “It’s not uncommon for administrative mistakes to be made, but the frequency of these mistakes is of particular concern,” said Low, chair of the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee. “And I don’t know of any other county having such issues.”

California: State’s electoral future is rooted in the old-fashioned absentee ballot | Los Angeles Times

For all of the intriguing ideas about improving California elections, there was one undeniable truth at a gathering last week of county officials and activists: The state’s 21st century voting will lean heavily on its greatest electoral innovation of 1864. That would be the absentee ballot. Call it reliable or anachronistic, but the do-it-yourself ballot is the foundation of voting reform in a state now on the cusp of 20 million registered voters. That revamping of elections begins next year in a handful of California counties, closing polling places in garages and schools while asking voters, like soldiers during the Civil War, to vote somewhere else. “Voters are looking for a choice,” said Neal Kelly, Orange County’s registrar at the event sponsored by the Future of California Elections, a nonprofit organization. “And they are looking for voting on their own terms.”

California: Proposal would lower voting age to 17 | San Jose Mercury News

California would become the first state in the nation to allow 17-year-olds to vote in a general election under a proposed state constitutional amendment introduced this week by a Silicon Valley legislator. In 1971, 18-year-olds across the United States won the right to vote through the 26th Amendment. But the U.S. Constitution doesn’t prevent states from further lowering the voting age, notes the measure’s main sponsor, Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Cupertino. Allowing citizens to vote while they’re still in high school will help to establish their voting habits early, before their transition to college or work, argues Low, who heads the Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting.

California: Los Angeles County sues state to block redistricting law | The Sacramento Bee

The next remap of California’s political lines is more than four years away, but some legal fights already have begun. Monday, Los Angeles County asked a judge to block a 2016 California law putting a new commission in charge of redrawing county supervisors’ districts after the 2020 census, contending in a lawsuit that the constitution does not allow a “state-imposed experiment in redistricting by partisan, unaccountable and randomly selected commissioners.”

California: San Francisco Elections Commission asks mayor to put $4M toward open source voting system | The San Francisco Examiner

While the Elections Commission may be among the least followed city bodies, the seven members are playing a critical role in determining whether San Francisco will begin to use an open-source voting system. For years, open-source voting advocates have called on San Francisco officials to part ways with traditional voting machine companies. Open-source voting is widely considered the best defense to voter fraud with the added benefits of cost savings and flexibility. Much to chagrin of these advocates, The City has continued to sign contracts with nonopen-source voting companies. While no open-source voting system has been deployed elsewhere, other jurisdictions are currently working on it, such as Travis County, Texas. After The City allocated $300,000 in the current fiscal year to move San Francisco toward an open-source voting system, the effort has gotten off to a slower-than-expected start. Advocates worry if funding isn’t committed to building out such a system, the effort will face further delays.

California: Bill would make Election Day a holiday | San Jose Mercury News

Many Californians would no longer have to worry about squeezing a trip to the polls into their working day if a bill proposed by a Silicon Valley lawmaker becomes law. Assembly Bill 674, authored by Evan Low, D-Cupertino, would make November elections on even years a holiday for schools and state workers as a way to boost voter turnout. Private businesses would not be required to close, but Low said he hoped many would choose to give their employees the day off. “I think this will ensure that more people will be able to participate in the electoral process,” Low said in an interview Thursday.

California: Judge says San Diego County must change vote counting procedures in future elections | The San Diego Union-Tribune

A judge has determined that San Diego County didn’t follow proper procedures in an audit of the June primary election and must use a different process when verifying future contests. In a Jan. 10 judgment, San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil determined that state election law says all mail-in ballots need to be included in a manual count of votes from 1 percent of precincts. Previously the County Registrar of Voters only used mail-in ballots received by Election Day in its manual count, while excluding mail-in votes received after polls closed. All ballots – including votes cast by mail, at polling places and accepted provisional ballots – are counted toward election results, but only a small portion are used in an audit used to double-check that votes are accurately counted by automated tabulation systems. Ray Lutz, the head of government watchdog organization Citizens Oversight Inc., said in his lawsuit that all types of ballots cast, including mail-in votes received by the registrar before and after Election Day as well as provisional ballots, should be included in the manual tally to ensure that election fraud has not occurred.

California: Los Angeles County Voting System Redesign Enters Solicitation Phase | Government Technology

Work to redesign the process of how residents vote in Los Angeles County, the largest local election jurisdiction in the U.S., is entering a critical but transformational stage after eight years of research and conceptualization. The county’s Voting Systems Assessment Project (VSAP), which began in 2009 at Caltech essentially as a research project, has been in design for the past three years. But in October, officials signed an agreement with technology researcher and adviser Gartner Inc. to do a sourcing strategy and readiness assessment over a five-month period. Gartner finished its preliminary work at the end of 2016 and should begin reaching out to members of the IT community during the next few weeks to get feedback, likely finishing its assessment by the end of February.

California: Clock ticking on open source voting effort as San Francisco extends voting machine contract | San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco is expected today to extend a voting machine contract for two years, even as The City plans to switch over to an open source voting system. An update on those open source voting plans are expected to be provided during the upcoming budget process before the Board of Supervisors later this year as the board is expected to approve the extension today. In the meantime, John Arntz, director of the Elections Department, said The City needs to extend the contract with Dominion, formerly known as Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., for the two scheduled upcoming elections in 2018 – the Statewide Primary Election on June 5, 2018, and the General Election on Nov. 6, 2018. The two-year contract extension from Dec. 11, 2016 through Dec. 31, 2018, totals $2.3 million, for a total of $21 million since The City first entered into an agreement with the voting machine company in 2007 through a competitively bid process. There is also a chance there may be a special November election through a local signature gathering effort.

California: The only thing ‘special’ about California special elections is the cost to taxpayers | Los Angeles Times

Democracy won’t come cheap in Los Angeles in 2017. Voters from Boyle Heights to Eagle Rock will likely vote twice — after two earlier elections last year — to fill a single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, with the final ballots costing county taxpayers more than $1.3 million to cast and count. This episode begins with former Sen. Barbara Boxer’s decision to retire in 2016, leading to the election of Sen. Kamala Harris. When she gave up her post as state attorney general, Gov. Jerry Brown chose Los Angeles Rep. Xavier Becerra as her replacement. And to fill Becerra’s seat, Brown must call a special election in the 34th Congressional District. We’ll get to the timing of that election in a moment. The common sense meaning of the word “special” is to describe something that, at the very least, is unusual. But there have been 50 special legislative or congressional elections in California in the last decade, according to state records. Thirteen contests were held in 2013 — more than any single year for almost the last quarter-century.