Amended
IN
Assembly
April 07, 2021 |
Introduced by Assembly Members Berman, Cervantes, and Lorena Gonzalez (Principal coauthor: Senator Umberg) (Coauthor: Assembly Member Quirk) |
December 07, 2020 |
(a)A county elections official shall permit a voter with a disability to cast his or her ballot using a certified remote accessible vote by mail system.
(b)This section does not apply to a county when conducting an all-mailed ballot election pursuant to Section 4005.
(c)This section shall become operative on January 1, 2020, or one year after the date on which the Secretary of State certifies a remote accessible vote by mail system pursuant to Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 19280) of Division 19, whichever is later.
(c)The Secretary of State shall use funds provided to the state pursuant to the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (52 U.S.C. Sec. 20901 et seq.) to develop the system described in this section. The Secretary of State shall implement this section only to the extent that these funds
are available.
(d)For
an election proclaimed or conducted prior to January 1, 2022, the county elections official shall use the system established by the Secretary of State pursuant to subdivision (a), unless the county makes available to voters a different vote by mail ballot tracking system that meets or exceeds the level of service provided by the Secretary of State’s system.
(b)(1)Any jurisdiction having the necessary computer capability may start to process vote by mail ballots on the 15th business day before the election. Processing vote by mail ballots includes opening vote by mail ballot return envelopes, removing ballots, duplicating any damaged ballots, and preparing the ballots to be machine read, or machine reading them, including processing write-in votes so
that they can be tallied by the machine, but under no circumstances may a vote count be accessed or released until 8 p.m. on the day of the election. All other jurisdictions shall start to process vote by mail ballots at 5 p.m. on the day before the election.
(2)For the statewide general election to be held on November 3, 2020, any
(a)Notwithstanding any other law, for each election, the elections official shall, no later than 29 days before the day of the election, begin mailing the materials specified in Section 3010 to every registered voter. The elections official shall have five days to mail a ballot to each person who is registered to vote on the 29th day before the day of the election and five days to mail a ballot to each person who is subsequently registered to vote. The elections official shall not discriminate against any region or precinct in choosing which ballots to mail first within the prescribed five-day mailing period.
(b)The distribution of vote by mail ballots to all registered voters
does not prevent a voter from voting in person at a polling place, vote center, or other authorized location.
(c)Consistent with paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) of Section 2226, this section does not require that the elections official mail a ballot to a voter with an inactive voter registration status.
(a)The Secretary of State shall maintain a system to allow a vote by mail voter to track the voter’s vote by mail ballot through the mail system and as the vote by mail ballot is processed by the county elections official. A county elections official shall use this system unless the county makes available to voters a different vote by mail ballot tracking system that meets or exceeds the level of service provided by the Secretary of State’s system. The system shall, at a minimum, allow a voter to register to receive information via email or text message from the county elections official about the status of the voter’s vote by mail ballot, including all of the following information:
(1)A notification when the ballot has been delivered by the county elections official to the United States Postal Service.
(2)A notification of the date, based on information from the United States Postal Service, that the voter’s ballot is expected to be delivered to the voter.
(3)A notification if the voter’s ballot is returned as undeliverable to the county elections official by the United States Postal Service.
(4)A notification when the voter’s completed ballot has been received by the county elections official.
(5)A notification that the voter’s completed ballot has been counted, or, if the ballot cannot be counted, a notification of the reason why
the ballot could not be counted and instructions of any steps that the voter can take in order to have the ballot counted.
(6)A reminder of the deadline for the voter to return the voter’s ballot if the county elections official has not received a voter’s completed ballot by specified dates as determined by the county elections official.
(b)The Secretary of State shall make the system
maintained pursuant to subdivision (a) available for use by each county. A county elections official may use the system for the purpose of complying with Section 3019.5.
If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.