Existing law requires the Legislature to define residence and provide for registration and free elections for the purposes of voting in the state. Existing law defines a “residence” for voting purposes to mean a person’s domicile, and provides that the domicile of a person is that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning. Existing law provides that at a given time, a person may have only one domicile. Existing law provides that a person does not gain or lose a domicile solely by reason of his or her presence or absence from a place while kept in an asylum or prison.

Existing law defines sexually violent predator, for the purposes of, among other things, classifying persons for commitment to the custody of the State Department of State Hospitals for mental health treatment, as a person who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense against one or more victims and who has a diagnosed mental disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others in that it is likely that he or she will engage in sexually violent criminal behavior.

This bill would provide that the domicile of a person who has been adjudicated a sexually violent predator and who is committed for an indeterminate term to the custody of the department shall be the last known address of the person before his or her commitment.