The pandemic-era vote-by-mail rule may be new California law

“When voters get ballots in the mail, they vote,” Berman, D-Palo Alto, said in a statement. “Last year, we enacted critical emergency election reforms to protect the health and safety of voters and poll workers, and they worked tremendously well. We had the highest voter turnout in 70 years.”

Berman, who serves as the chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, passed Assembly Bill 860 last year, which required vote-by-mail ballots be sent to all registered California voters for the 2020 general election, a shift made in response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic. 

A record number of statewide voter participation that year, more than 68% in the general election which included 86.7% of votes being cast by mail, is attributed in large part to the change.

Previously, most voters would have needed to request a mail-in ballot.

AB 37 would require ballots be mailed to voters at least 29 days ahead of elections and would give voters up until Election Day to mail ballots back. Ballots would be counted as long as received by election officials within a week of the deadline.

The bill would additionally require that any county that does not conduct an all-mailed ballot election provide at least one drop-off location per 30,000 registered voters. Counties with fewer than 30,000 registered voters would be required to have at least one drop-off location and counties with fewer than 60,000 registered voters would be required to have two locations.

Opposition to the bill, which passed the Assembly with a 60-17 vote, has been mostly centered around concerns of voter fraud — concerns which became key amongst some conservatives during the 2020 general election. 

“I strongly oppose this legislation that comes at a time when a significant amount of voters already have lost their confidence in the electoral process,” state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, said. “We haven’t purged voter rolls in decades … These voter rolls are already a mess from the DMV practice of automatically registering Californians to vote, creating a catch-all system that allows ineligible voters to participate.”

Others echoed her concerns that updates and safeguards need to be put in place before voters should automatically receive ballots in the mail.

State Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, brought up a recent Los Angeles Times report of a man who was found to have more than 300 stolen mail-in ballots for the upcoming gubernatorial recall election.

“We have some problems, let’s just face that,” Dahle said. “Obviously that’s why there’s distrust in the process.” 

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, spoke in favor of the bill, alleging that distrust in the electoral system exists because of misinformation.

“Expanding the ability to vote, which is what we are doing today, that does not reduce trust,” Wiener said. “We are doing the opposite of what’s happening in places like Texas and Georgia and other states that are trying to make it really hard for people to vote, particularly for city dwellers, for people of color, for low-income people, for students, in order to manipulate the results of the election.”

AB 37 would make California the sixth state to require registered voters be mailed a ballot, behind Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah.

The bill will now go before Gov. Gavin Newsom who can decide to sign or veto it.

corey@smdailyjournal.com

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