Assembly Standing Committee on Elections

Good morning. Am I on now? There we go. I'm thinking red means stop. It's been. You know, it's my first hearing back. Good morning. I'd like to call the March 262025 hearing of the Assembly Elections Committee to order. We're beginning as a. We have a quorum. We have a quorum. Let's. Before we proceed, let's call the roll and establish a quorum. Lori will call the roll, please.

[Roll Call]

Very well. Good. I'd like to welcome everyone who's here in the hearing room today and who's watching this hearing online. For the purpose of this hearing, we are accepting witness testimony in person and we are also accepting written testimony throughout the Legislature through the Legislature's position letter portal.

That portal can be accessed through the Committee's website at aelc.assembly.ca.gov. The Committee has eight bills on its agenda. There are five bills on consent. When we hear the bills on the agenda, we will hear from a maximum of two primary witnesses in support and two primary witnesses in opposition of the Bill, with a limit of two minutes per witness.

Other witnesses are limited to providing their name, the organization they represent, if any, and their position on the Bill. Additional comments will be ruled out of order. We seek to protect the rights of all who participate in the legislative process so that we can have effective deliberation and decisions on the critical issues facing California.

In order to facilitate the Committee's business and public participation in today's hearing, we will not permit conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings. Violations of these rules may subject you to removal or other enforcement actions. With those announcements out of the way, we will now move on to the Committee's agenda.

Before we get to bills, our first order of business will be to adopt Committee rules for the 2025-26 legislative session. The proposed rules are similar to the rules used for the last several sessions with several technical and clarifying changes. Do we have a motion to approve the proposed Committee rules?

We have a motion by Assemblymember Macedo and a second by Tongapa. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

And 4 to 0. And we'll keep. We'll Keep the roll open for others to add. On our next item of business, let's take up the Committee's consent calendar. There are five bills on the consent calendar. The Committee secretary will read the item on the items on the consent calendar.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Does any Member wish to remove an item from the consent calendar? Seen and hearing? None. Do we have a motion on the consent calendar? Moved by Assembly Member Stephanie. Seconded by Tongapa. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

So that vote is 4 to 0. We'll keep the roll open for our Members to add on. Before we begin, I just want to thank the Members who are here on time. I appreciate the on time caucus for this Committee.

I also want to, since it's our first hearing, just want to thank our chief consultant, Ethan Jones for all the work he does to make sure these hearings happen. Nicole Becker, Amazing team. And of course our secretary, Lori. So good to have you all here today.

So we will now move on to other business on the Committee's agenda. The first item on the agenda is AB775 by Assembly Member Fong. Come on down. You may begin when you're ready.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Members, thank you so much for the opportunity to present AB775 here today. AB775 updates the process and deadline for filing behested payment reports in order to modernize and streamline the filing process and to improve transparency.

First, I would like to accept the Committee's amendments proposed in the Committee's analysis and thank your Committee staff for their help. Behested, payments are payments made at the request on or behalf of an official for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose.

As many of us know, elected officials and Members of the Public Utilities Commission are required by law to file a behesta payment report within 30 days of the payment being received for payments of $5,000 or more from a single source in a calendar year.

Under current law, elected officials and Members of the PEC may but are not required to submit their behesta payment reports directly to the Fair Political Practices Commission.

And local elected officials are not required at all to submit behested payments to the FPPC, but rather to their local agency, who then forward a copy of the report to the filing officer with whom they file campaign statements.

The current filing process for both state and local elected officials needs to be simplified in order to provide elected officials with sufficient time to file their report and to streamline the process to increase transparency and public access. AB775 achieves this in the following ways.

It extends the filing deadline to within 30 days after the end of the calendar quarter in which the payment was received.

It requires elected officials and Members of the PUC to file their reports directly with the FPPC through their electronic filing system and for a local elected official, they may also file directly with the FPCC or with their agency, but only if their agency posts the behest of payment reports publicly on their website.

This would also establish a minimum threshold of $1,000 for filing additional payments made by the same donor after the initial behested payment report has been submitted. This will also codify certain information currently on the behest of payment form.

The intent of these changes to the behest of payment system and process is to provide more flexibility for our behesting officers to comply, especially on the local level, while also streaming the process to improve the public access to all behested payment reports.

And here to testify in support of Assembly Bill 775 is the Chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, Adam Silver.

Thank you, and you have two minutes. Welcome. Good to see you again.

Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you. Assemblymember Fong. Good morning, Chair Pellerin and Members. My name is Adam Silver. I'm the Chair to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Prior to being appointed to that position, I served as Commission Counsel to the FPPC, where I advised on and enforced the state's behested payment reporting requirements.

I'm here today to voice the Commission's strong support for AB775, a thoughtful, common sense bill that's going to modernize and strengthen transparency in the context of behested payment reporting. With the recent increase in behested payments, the people of California are asking who's making these payments, who's directing these payments, and who's benefiting from these payments. Right.

And under the current framework, it's often difficult for the public to secure that information. AB775 addresses that specific issue. So by mandating online disclosure and establishing clear, universal filing deadlines, AB 775 guarantees that the behested payment data Californians seek will be timely and easily accessible, as it should be.

Currently, most local jurisdictions do not post their behested payment reports online. That makes it extremely difficult, arguably impossible in some cases for the public or even the press to track behested payment reports as they come in.

By requiring online posting and quarterly reporting, this bill creates a predictable, easy to navigate framework for the public, the press, watchdog groups, enforcement agencies like the FPPC to monitor behested payment activity.

And finally, this bill Codifies FPPC regulations that require officials to disclose critical information related to behested payments, including proceedings that are before a behesting official agency, such as contracts, for example. It also requires disclosure of certain relationships that an official may have with the recipient of a behested payment.

So with that, on behalf of the Commission, I'd like to thank again, Assemblymember Fong and his staff for their leadership on this issue. And thank you, the Committee, for your time and consideration. More than happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much. Are there any additional witnesses who would like to register their support for this bill? If so, please come up to the mic. State your name, organization, if any, and your position. No rush to the mic. Okay. We will now move on to the primary witnesses in opposition. Anybody in opposition to this bill?

Anybody just want to go to the mic and say, I don't like the bill? Nobody? Okay. All right, well, this is great. Lucky for you. I'll bring it back to the dais here. Any Members have any questions or comments? Assembly Member Solache.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to Mr. Fong for bringing this bill to us and to the Chairman. I appreciate your time. I think we do a good job in the Assembly and in what we follow these behests and all these rules.

I think one of the areas that we need to do better is when you're a candidate, right? There's all these rules you have to follow that it's not quite also as transparent.

So look forward to working with you specifically on the future and how we do a better collectively to make it easier for the candidate because there's all these deadlines and things that we don't quite know. And you know, it's not intentional that we don't do some of the reporting or disclosures, just the, the.

The intricacies of running for office and not knowing that as a, as a Member, I think my. Our staff do a good job and amazing job. By the way, Erin in my office is amazing and she keeps me on track and keeps me alive somehow.

But, but on that note, I look forward to working with you and making sure that we make that process a little easier for the candidate. Thank you.

Thank you. Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member Tangipa.

I also want to reiterate what Assembly Member Solache had stated too. When it comes to transparency, anything that we can do to embolden transparency is important. I want to thank Assemblyman Fong for bringing this up. If you've got nothing to hide, then might as well put all your cards on the table.

And when I heard that Adam Silver was coming, you know, I thought the NBA Commissioner was going to be here, but got a great. Sorry to disappoint, you know, but again, just want to thank you for also being here.

Would love to work together as well in the future how we can make sure that we can really be as transparent as we can. I think the people deserve that and really look forward to supporting this bill. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from Committee Members? Seeing none. Do I have a motion? So moved Motion by Assembly Member Solache. A second? Second second by our Vice Chair, Assembly Member Macedo. Assemblymember Fong, you may close.

Thank you so much colleagues and for your comments. And thank you Mr. Silver for his comments as well. I respectfully asked for an Aye vote.

So this bill improves our public transparency of behested payment reports while streamlining reporting requirements to ensure that public officials are reporting accurate information. I want to thank the author and the sponsor for working with Committee staff on some minor and technical amendments.

And with those amendments I'm recommending a support with do pass to re refer to the Appropriations Committee. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on AB 775.

Fong, the motion is do pass as amended and be re referred to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

That bill is out 5 to 0. We'll keep the roll open for our absent Members.

Thank you so much. Madam Chair.

Members, thank you so much.

Thank you.

And I see you hiding in the back of the room there, Mr. Assembly Member Lackey. Come on down. Good to see you. Our former Vice Chair of the Elections Committee. You may begin when you're ready.

It's good to be here. Thank you, Madam Chair and members for allowing me to present AB287. It feels good to be back. And AB287 will require vote centers to provide accessible parking to accommodate curbside voting for people with disabilities.

The United States Department of Justice, excuse me, has surveyed polling places in Los Angeles County during the 2016-2022 election cycle and found that its voting centers failed to accommodate accessibility for persons with disabilities. In that survey, it was found that many voting locations lacked accessible parking and featured steep ramps, unstable sidewalks and inaccessible entrances.

The investigation also found that some voting locations faced challenges with curbside voting. We must ensure that Californians with disabilities can fully and equally participate in the electoral process. This means making sure that they have accessible parking at polling places and vote centers for curbside voting if they need it. This bill is simply clarifying. Is a clarifying bill.

Sorry to help guarantee that everyone has equal opportunity to vote. With me today is Aaron Nevarez, Assistant Registrar Recorder and County Clerk with the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder County Clerk and Eric Harris, who is. I think he's here. Who is the Associate Director of External affairs at Disability Rights. At least he's supposed to be here.

I don't know if he is or not.

Thank you, Dora. And you may begin when you're ready. You have two minutes. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Pellerin and members of the committee. As stated, I'm Aaron Nevarez, Assistant Registrar, Recorder, County Clerk in Los Angeles County. I also serve on the state's Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee and am co Chair of the Estate Association's Voters with Specific Needs Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today as the Bill sponsor in support of AB287 introduced by Assemblymember Lackey on behalf of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Registrar Recorder, County Clerk, we request your support for this bill which ensures that public facilities that serve as vote centers and polling places provide election officials with adequate space and parking necessary to conduct elections in an accessible and efficient manner.

This bill seeks to clarify the obligation for public buildings and schools to provide adequate space for voting equipment and storage of related supplies. This bill also clarifies that free accessible parking and curbside voting are essential elements of the voting experience and considered core components of the voting location.

In LA County, one in four vote centers does not have a ready place to provide curbside or accessible parking for voters. Accessible parking and improved access to curbside voting are requests we often receive from our voters with disabilities. This bill would alleviate the burden of locating curbside voting an excessive distance away from a voting location.

The use of public facilities benefits our voters not only with familiarity, but with bringing critical access to our voters with disabilities. This bill brings together important requirements with the usage of schools and public buildings, and it makes it clear that voting includes all of these elements, not just a specific room where voters come to cast their ballots.

Honorable Members of the Committee on Behalf of Los Angeles County, we urge your support in AB287. This bill would provide election administrators with more efficient operations, but most importantly to make polling places and vote centers in California more accessible to voters with disabilities. Thank you for the opportunity to express our support for this important bill.

Thank you so much and welcome. Mr. Harris, you have two minutes.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon or good morning. Chair Pellerin and members. My name is Eric Harris and I'm the Director of Public Policy at Disability Rights California. We are the state's protection and advocacy system for all people with disabilities.

We advocate and defend for all people throughout the State of California, especially on issues relating to accessibility and we strongly support AB287 by Assemblymember Lackey. AB287 ensures that elections officials can secure what they need from public buildings, specifically accessible parking spaces, designated curbside voting areas, and adequate interior space for assistive equipment like ballot marking devices.

These are reasonable, targeted provisions that reflect both the operational needs of elections officials and the requirements for accessible voting. Under current law, public buildings such as schools and government offices must provide parking if requested by elected elections officials. However, there is no requirement that this parking include accessible spots or space for curbside voting.

AB287 helps close this gap. It ensures that if requested, public buildings must make accessible parking and curbside voting spaces available. This will help elections officials provide the accommodations necessary to support voters with disabilities. Just as important, it will help counties comply with the legal obligations to offer curbside voting at every polling place and voting center.

Curbside voting is not possible without safe designated locations for voters to be able to check in and complete a ballot in their car. This bill is a common sense fix that supports smoother election planning and expands access to the ballot for Californians with disabilities.

We urge your aye vote today and thank you for your ongoing leadership on these issues.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Are there any other additional witnesses who'd like to register support for this bill? If so, please come up to the mic. State your name organization of any and your position.

Good morning Chair, members. Larissa Mercado on behalf of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Move the bill.

Thank you for your motion. A motion by Assemblymember Berman seconded by Solache. Are you coming up to-

A tweener. We'll take a tweener. Okay. Alright. Okay. Is there anybody in opposition to the bill first? Okay. See no primary in opposition. We'll go ahead and hear a tweener for two minutes.

Tweener?

Alright. Thank you. Good morning chair and members. Sasha Horowitz with the Los Angeles Unified School District. I do appreciate the author bringing this built forward. I think it's very well intentioned and I think we, we can get to a position where we will absolutely be comfortable with the bill.

We presented some amendments to the author's office. They're currently reviewing them. From the district's point of view and the point of view of many other school districts in the state, we want to be able to make sure that we can actually meet the requirements as drafted.

So about in Los Angeles unified, about 80% of our schools are under parked and may struggle to provide sufficient parking for teachers, students with disabilities, not just folks who are coming to vote on our campuses. And this is especially true at our older school sites.

So if we're required to make accessible parking available during the 10 day window is required in the bill, this could result in the displacement of students and employees who need accessible parking during those same that same time period. We're also under the bill required to provide space to store materials for the period up into election day.

That that's great if we have the space available and we're willing and ready to do that. But sometimes that means we need to relocate items outside of a room, say multipurpose room, and store those for a period of time.

School districts should not be on the hook to pay for that cost as we're trying to provide a public service to the registrar. And so we want to make sure that actual and reasonable costs associated with moving those items is available for the manpower and storage costs associated with storing those materials.

And with those amendments, if they're accepted, which the author is currently reviewing, we would be happy to stand back and watch this bill pass. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Anyone else in the room support opposition? Seeing none. I'll bring it back to the members. Any questions or comments? Assemblymember Solache.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As a former school board Member in Linwood, in my district and LA Unified, being half of my district. I'm sure LA Unified has many schools that we could look at where they can accommodate our community with these special requirements.

So I look forward to working with the LA Unified office and identifying schools that do meet the situation and instead of, you know, the other way around. So just, I think that would be another. What is a tweener? What did you guys call it? A tweener. That's my tweener approach too.

So how do we find schools that can accommodate a community that need that accessibility? So, thank you Madam Chair.

And Assemblymember Macedo.

Good morning. I want to preface this by saying I fully support this bill and love that we are accommodating every voter. I do have a question of, have we done any research to see how many polling locations were would be disqualified as a result of this bill?

Because I do have concerns for all voters to have access with the distance they would have to travel to a polling location, potentially, if we have any data on that information.

I'll let Mr. Nevarez address that.

Thank you. Thank you, member.

One of the challenges we have, especially in Los Angeles County, is ensuring that we have enough vote centers, places, I think to your point. So in Los Angeles County in the last presidential election, we had 640 vote centers. So our analysis is really based on ensuring that we have adequate saturation of vote centers throughout Los Angeles County.

We will ensure that we meet both elements. So ensuring that we have adequate capacity of vote centers throughout Los Angeles County while meeting our accessibility requirements. So one of the things that we do is we work collaboratively with school districts like LAUSD. LAUSD is our biggest partner in terms of placement of schools.

Over 100 of their schools are used in many of our elections. So in the event where a particular school did not have parking, we would work to find parking on the street in different areas.

So part of our charge is to ensure that we're navigating the mission that schools have while also providing, you know, open and transparent and accessible voting for all of our voters. So we're committed to doing that. Regardless if a school has a location, we will not be taking a vote center out of a particular community.

In that event, we will work with them collaboratively. We don't want to displace students or teachers either. And so one of the elements of this is we only use schools for our four day sites. So really the school might only need to give up parking for two days. So again, we're not minimizing that.

We would want to work with the schools collaboratively in no way would we be removing a vote center from a location or a service area. We would find a solution that works to provide accessibility as well.

And to your knowledge, we have the resources to accommodate that without enhanced cost or burden? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.

Assemblymember Tangipa.

I just wanted to thank the author for bringing this. I've volunteered at the Fresno County Clerk and Elections Office before and one of the main calls that we got was there's no parking in the area and there's no way we can get out of our car because we're handicapped, disabled. And I just wanted to say thank you.

I think about all the veterans that need this type of support. I think about a lot of the individuals who just want to go and do their civic duty and make their job easier. And if there's anything we could do to make it better, I think that's something that we all need to see. So thank you.

Any other comments or questions for members seeing none. Assemblymember Lackey, you may close.

Yeah. Thank you for the engagement. And this. This proposal is clearly just a consideration of fairness. And I think oftentimes we take the fact that we don't have these challenges in our life for granted and we overlook some of these special circumstances.

And this is just an attempt to try to level the playing field and allow everybody the opportunity to do what is not taken advantage of by too many people. And that is to express their privilege to vote. And I hope that you'll give it favorable consideration and show your fairness. Thank you.

Thank you. You already have a motion and a second and I just want to. The motion was Assemblymember Berman and seconded by selecting and I just want to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. As a former registrar voters, I understand the challenges involved in finding voting locations and ensuring that they are accessible to all voters.

I've done a lot of work in my career with the Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee and with the Disability Rights California ensuring that our voting is accessible to everyone. I do believe, you know, schools are incredible partners for us and.

And I do believe when there's a will, there's a way so we can get creative on making sure that people have access to voting. I would be honored if you would add me as a co-author.

I'm honored to do that.

So with that I'm recommending a support and secretary please call the roll.

On AB 287 by Lackey. The motion is due pass. [MOTION CALL]

Tangipa. Yes. That's out. 6, 0.

6, 0. That's out. We'll keep the roll open for any members that come in. Thank you. Okay, we're now moving to our last Bill and that happens to be by me, AB331. So I'm going to turn the mic over and the gavel to our incredible Vice Chair. So did I just bring that over there? Okay.

[INAUDIBLE]

It won't be the last.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to start off by saying, it's truly an honor to serve as your Vice Chair.

And to all Members, hopefully I do you proud. So, please bear with me, because this is my first time doing this.

Thank you.

You're doing great.

Thank you. So, the next item on the agenda is AB 331, by our lovely Chairwoman, Assemblymember Pellerin. Assemblymember, thank you for joining us today. You may present your Bill.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and Members. Through its ongoing elections work and through case studies arising in other states, the California Department of Justice has identified three ways to strengthen and clarify our elections code, which, together, constitute this Bill. Historically, the statutory process of certification has been uncontroversial post-election formality.

However, since November 2020, counties in eight different states have delayed certification of their election results, with tight certification deadlines at the local, state, and federal levels, delays at the local level could cause a state to miss federal deadlines, which disrupts an orderly election and could open up states to protracted litigation.

While none of California's elections officials have ever been derelict in their duty and failed to certify, AB 331 proactively clarifies that the duty to certify elections' results is a ministerial and non-discretionary duty of an elections official.

As currently in print, should an elections official fail to timely certify and report their elections' results, AB 331 requires that they transmit all election materials to the custody of the Secretary of State, to facilitate the certification of the election.

We have been in conversation with the Secretary of State's office, who has concerns about this provision, and I will work with them and the counties on coming up with a viable solution for election results to be certified, should a county be unable or unwilling to perform their duty.

The second part of this Bill addresses misleading ballot return envelopes. In our past election, a voter in Los Angeles received a ballot-sized envelope that they could have reasonably confused with an official ballot return envelope.

As you likely know, displaying fraudulent ballot collection boxes is a crime, and AB 331 adds distributing fraudulent ballot return envelopes to this definition of a crime. Finally, the Attorney General has received reports that registered voters in county jails are not receiving their voter information guides.

This is generally happening—happening—because the voter information guides tend to be held together with staples, which are not accepted by most jails. So, AB 331 requires that both state and county voter information guides be delivered to jails in a format that is acceptable.

I have worked with the County Elections Officials to draft amendments that will be crossing prior to Assembly Public Safety, to clarify the technicalities of delivery. And with me to testify are Deputy Attorneys, General Tiffany Brokaw and Michael Cohen.

Good morning, Vice Chair and Members. Tiffany Brokaw, Deputy Attorney General, here on behalf of Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is proud to sponsor AB 331 by Chair Gail Pellerin. AB 331 will clarify and strengthen California's election laws in three ways.

The first is to ensure the law is clear that a county's duty to certify and report their election results is ministerial and non-discretionary. As Chair Pellerin mentioned, since November 2020, counties in eight different states have experienced delayed certifications because officials have refused to certify the vote.

There are tight deadlines at the state, local and federal level, and it is crucial that California's results are certified on time. Clarity in the law, as proposed by this Bill, would be beneficial to ensure that officials are aware of their non-discretionary obligation to certify.

So, this provision is really a proactive approach to avoid the trends that we've been seeing on the national level. The second way that AB 331 clarifies and strengthens our election laws is to ensure that registered voters in jails receive the voter ID guides that they are required to receive under law.

Our office is aware that some registered voters in jails are not receiving these guides because their publications are always held together by staples, which are often not allowed in jails. This Bill will require that they be—they be delivered—in a format that jails can accept, and we made the language flexible for that to be determined on a case by case basis.

Lastly, AB 331 will ensure that the unofficial ballot return envelopes are not used to mislead voters. Our office received a report of a potentially misleading unofficial ballot return envelope being delivered to a voter, that could have rerouted this person's ballot, resulting in their vote not being counted. This Bill would establish consequences to deter this type of conduct.

I have here with me Deputy Attorney General Michael Cohen, who works on elections issues for our office, to answer any technical questions that you may have. Our election laws are foundational to a free and fair election, and AB 331 would clarify and strengthen those laws. For these reasons, Attorney General Bonta requests an "Aye" vote on AB 331. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Mr. Cohen, do you have anything you'd like to say?

Good morning, Vice Chair and Members. I don't have any pre-prepared testimony, but as Ms. Brokaw mentioned, I'm happy to answer any questions that the Members have.

Well, thank you. We will now—sorry, I messed up—shocking, I know. Are there any additional witnesses who would like to register your support for this Bill? As a reminder, all additional witnesses are limited to providing their name, the organizations they represent. Nope. Nobody. Okay, we will now move on—no.

Yeah.

We will now move on to the primary witnesses in opposition. Seeing none. Are there any additional witnesses that would like to register their opposition to this Bill?

Tweener. He's a tweener.

When I think of "Tweener," I think of like a 12–13-year-old. Bear with me, guys.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Tim Cromartie, Deputy Secretary of State for Legislation, on behalf of Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber. We have concerns about the Bill, and I apologize for—this came to us late last week and we have submitted a letter of concerns, the highlights of which I will share with you now.

And I want to state at the outset, we are already in discussion with the Attorney General's Office, as well as the author's office, to try to rectify the issues that we've raised.

While the Secretary of State supports the broad objectives of this legislation—as currently drafted—the provisions regarding SOS takeover of certification of the vote for counties, we have significant concerns about the feasibility of those provisions, mainly because of the implementation problem.

Should an elections official fail to prepare a certified statement of the results, there is a strong implication that the Secretary of State could be required to conduct a full canvas of the vote for that county.

Section 4 of the Bill specifies that elections officials, in that event, are to deliver all records to the Secretary of State, presumably so that we can make the necessary determination required to certify the results.

The wrinkle is that SOS has neither the appropriate systems, nor secure facilities, to count and tabulate ballots in place of a county elections official and their staff doing so. Our current responsibilities do not call for us to canvas or tabulate ballots.

Nor do we have the trained staff to run a county's election management system, which includes processing of ballots and conducting signature verification of vote-by-mail ballots. A significant threshold issue is that we lack the required ballot tabulation equipment, county election management systems, and trained staff to canvas ballots.

And for the Committee's information, counties across the state contract with one of three different EMS vendors—EMS meaning election management systems.

Our current process is that the election services unit intakes each county canvas individually over the course of that 30 days, addressing deficiencies immediately, and if necessary, asking county for additional clarifying information for compliance with the official canvas reporting requirements. As currently written, this Bill represents a dramatic expansion of those duties, presenting serious logistic and other challenges.

And again, we are willing and look forward to engaging with both the Author's office and the Attorney General to resolve these issues. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there any other opposition? Okay, I'm going to open it up to the Committee.

Move the Bill.

We have a motion by Assembly Member Berman, and a second by Assembly Member Tangipa. Okay.

I'm happy to swap.

Ms. Pellerin—or Assemblymember Pellerin—you're welcome to close.

I just want to thank the Secretary of State's Office for their comments. We are working with them to come up with a resolution of this, which I think is very, you know, we're going to make that happen.

It's going to be a good remedy for that, understanding that the work really needs to be focused on the counties and maybe the oversight with the Secretary of State's Office. So, with that, I respectfully ask for your "Aye" vote.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you're willing to collaborate on this and to strengthen our election integrity as a state. So, I'm going to go ahead and open the roll up for a vote.

[Roll Call]

It's out, 6 - 0. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Can I bang the gavel just to feel important? Not yet.

That'll create a lot of complications.

Okay, well, we have to wait for our not-on-time friends, or busy friends. One of the two. We have busy friends. That's normal up here. If I must. Tasted the power for a moment.

Very powerful thing. Okay, so thank you all. Let's go ahead and open the roll for those who missed some of the votes, and then we'll keep the roll open for those making their way here to add on to the rolls. Right? Okay.

But which bill do we have to start? That...bill? Oh, yeah. Let's start with the Committee Rules. We have a motion to adopt our Committee Rules. Madam Secretary, please call for the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

We're going to continue to keep that open for somebody Member Bennett to make his way in. So maybe next door. Let's. Let's linger on that one. Oh, shoot, shoot. That was a great entry . I know. My heart just stopped. I was like, oh, no.

[Roll Call]

So those two are out.

[Roll Call]

That is it. Thank you. So all bills and rules and consent have been adopted and out. Anything else? Okay, you're good. Welcome to the Bennett show. All right, this hearing is adjourned. Thank.