Senate Standing Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments

Madam Chair, can I just introduce the folks who are here visiting?

Yes, but I also. I would like to welcome them here because I was speaking with them before. But let me call the Committee to order here. Good morning, everybody. The Senate Committee on elections and constitutional amendments will now come to order. And first I would like to welcome.

We have a delegation from Argentina and the State of Santa Fe here visiting us. They're going to be in town for almost a week, not all in Sacramento, but throughout the state. And we're really thrilled to have you. So thank you for coming to watch the elections Committee.

And I'd like to invite Senator Allen to say any words he'd like to.

Well, just. We have a sister state relationship with Santa Fe, the State of California, and we've had delegations that have gone back and forth between these two states for many years. Diego, my good, good friend, has been leading these, these trips back and forth for quite some time. And they're here in California visiting.

They're actually going to be going to San Francisco, I think, later today, but they've been here for a couple of days in the Capitol. They're going to be going to Chicago, I think, for the Democratic Convention, which will be fun. But it's a wonderful relationship.

And I just encourage you to get to know the foundation that's working on trying to bring greater legislative dialogue. We were planning on meeting at 9:30, and then all of a sudden we had to have this Bill, which I'm excited about. So I thought it would be fun for them to come and see the proceedings.

They're all Senators from Santa Fe.

Yes, Mister Portantino, if I could add a few words.

I'm Anthony Portantino, Senator from Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena. But I grew up in New Jersey, and one of my saddest issues as a young person in the seventies is a group of Argentinian Italians would come visit my grandfather, and they were called the cousins. And they would just come and spend months from Argentina.

But I have no way of tracking down who these people because all of my relatives have passed. But they would literally, this group of four men, brothers, would come visit my grandfather from Argentina almost every summer. And I don't know how to figure out who they were, but that's my connection to Argentina.

And of course, I will claim Messi as being Italian, just for the record, so everybody understands. He's both Argentinian and Italian. So anyway, welcome, and I'm glad you're hanging out with one of my favorite legislators, so be well.

We're really thrilled you're here. So thank you for coming to watch this Committee. So we do not have a quorum yet. A quorum is four Senators and we currently have three. So we will start as a Subcommitee. We are happy to have our author here, Assemblymember Berman is presenting on AB 3184.

So with that, you may present your measure.

Thank you, chair Blakespear. And I'd just like to start with a question, which is when are we going on a fact finding mission for Senator Portantino to find the cousins to Argentina? And we need to do that. Diego will organize the bags, so I'm looking forward to that. Welcome. Thank you for being here.

In our last general election in November of 2022, nearly 50% of rejected vote by mail ballots in California were for either a missing or a non-matching signature. And that's not an insignificant number of ballots. That was nearly 60,000 ballots were rejected for either a missing or a non-matching signature.

And AB 3184 would provide greater opportunity for voters to cure vote by mail ballot signature issues this November to have their voice heard and their vote counted.

Right now, if there is a mismatching or missing signature on the vote by mail ballot envelope, our elections officials notify the voter of the problem and how to correct it, and that the voter has until 05:00 p.m. two days prior to the certification of the election.

The problem is that voters may not know when a county is going to certify the election and so they may do the work to correct the deficiency only to find out that they were too late and their vote doesn't count.

AB 3184 would specify that counties cannot certify the election results until the 28th day after the election and that voters and campaigns have until the 26th day to fix signature issues.

This maximizes the time to correct a signature issue and ensure that the vote is counted and provides a date certain so that everyone, every voter is operating on a level playing field. The Bill retains its previous content on ballot rejection reports and also includes several quite technical changes to also improve the ballot cure process.

And I respectfully ask for an aye vote when you have a quorum.

Well, thank you, Assembly Member Berman. Do you have any lead witnesses in support?

I think I'm just me today.

Okay. Do we have anyone in the room who would like to offer support? I do not see any. Do we have any opposition witnesses? Do we have anybody who would like to offer opposition testimony? I do not see any in the room, so I would just, I'll just summarize and you can confirm if this is true.

So in California, we send a ballot to every voter and they can, for an entire month, they can decide who they want to vote for, and they fill out their ballot at home, and then they put a stamp. They actually don't put a stamp on it. There's already a stamp on it.

And they have to sign the ballot, and that signature has to match what's on file with the state.

And so if they send their ballot back to the state and the signature doesn't match, because, for example, when they were 16 and they hadn't worked out their signature, that's when they first got their driver's license and they signed their name a certain way. And now, many years later, their signature is radically different.

Or they forgot to sign it. They just put it in the mail and sent it back. Then there are 60,000. Is that what you said? 60,000 of these ballots that are rejected because they don't have the signature?

Yep.

So the State of California allows a cure process so they can fix the signature so their vote will count, because it's very important in California that we count every vote. So when people want to vote, we want to make sure that we register their vote.

Right.

So this Bill is aiming to make that more clear, how exactly the signature problem would get fixed.

Is that true?

Exactly.

And if there's. That is absolutely true. And if there's any debate as to how important every vote is, the congressional election in my district ended in a tie for the second and third place just this past primary. And so that just shows how important every vote is and how every, any vote could swing the election.

And so we want, if you, if you made the best faith effort to follow the rules, we want to make sure your vote gets counted.

That's a great point. About your congressional districts. Do you remember the exact number?

That was the tie?

It was in the thousands. Tens of thousands. Yes, it was tens of thousands. The exact same number for two candidates. It does really matter.

Absolutely.

So we now have four Members here, so we could establish a quorum. So I will ask the assistant to please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Okay. And do any of our Members have any other questions or comments? Yes. Oh, excellent.

Would you like to offer support, Madam Chair Members?

Tim Cremody, on behalf of Secretary of State Shirley Weber, proud to continue to sponsor and support this measure.

Thank you for coming. Let's see, do we have any other comments or questions from Members? I do not see any. And we have a motion from Senator Allen. So the motion is that the measure be returned to the Senate Floor for consideration and we will close respectfully ask for your.

Aye vote. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you. So assistant, please call the roll, Senators.

[Second Roll]

Okay, thank you. This will remain on call. Do you think we should go into recess? As we wait? The Senate elections Committee will now go into recess. Constitutional amendments will come to order in 60 seconds.

We have returned from recess for the Senate elections and constitutional amendments Committee. And we have one item, AB 3184 from Berman. And we will lift the call and assistant, please call the roll.

Lifting call for file item one, AB 3184 motion is the measure be returned to the Senate Floor for consideration. Current vote is 4 - 0. [Roll Call]

Wait, didn't Senator Allen vote?

He did. I apologize. I over. I went over this. Oh, okay.

Do you want to just say it again? Yes. Okay.

[Roll Call]

It's 5 - 0. We are closing the roll. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, everybody. Okay. The Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional amendments is adjourned.