California SB 1140 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 27. It had passed the Senate Elections Committee on April 7. The bill will now move to the Senate floor. It makes it possible for unregistered voters to register on election day. Thanks to Calitics for this news.
The bill would not permit an unregistered voter to register at his or her neighborhood polling place. Instead, the unregistered voter would need to travel to the county’s elections office, or a satellite elections office. It would take effect in 2012.
The bill also pertains to a voter who is already registered, but wishes to change his or her party registration on primary election day. This aspect of the bill moves California closer to being a classic open primary state. A classic open primary is one in which a voter is free, on primary election day, to decide which party’s primary to vote in. However, the impact would be limited because of the bill’s requirement that the voter travel to a county elections office on election day, to register or re-register.
One thing about this that I see making it very problematical is the registration location. In Counties with no more than 2 or 3 hundred thousand going to the County seat shouldn’t be to much of a hassle. But what about the million plus Counties?
Los Angeles County has several thousand voting precincts. Would the L. A. County Clerk’s office take say one or two hundred precincts together to designate as the local territory to feed into a ‘satellite’ location. How would anyone find out where to go to vote. Remember many people are still not connected to the internet or understand much more than how to read their e-mail.
What about places like Blythe on the Colorado River in Riverside County or the High Desert in San Bernardino County? Having to drive over an hour to register to vote is almost certain to discourage anyone to try.
This seems to be another of the Legislature’s attempts to make things seem improved without REALLY doing anything constructive. Personally, I do not agree with allowing people to continue registering to vote after the Vote-by-mail ballots go out. Whatever the cut-off date is should be the date that ballots begin being mailed to the voters. Whether it’s 15 days before the election or some other time frame, I feel that this is ONE issue that the voters should decide and not the Legislature.
In many states mail-in ballots go out in several mailings as more requests come in. Also, early voting is allowed. If you are traveling to a polling place with proper id, why not let folks register up to and including the last day of the voting?
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Charles Deemer,
How fast do you drive? As a student in Blyth to make the trip from the Riverside Registrar of Voters Office took me over 4 and 1/2 hours nonstop.
How does it work if the voter that was DTS and voted by absentee and now wants to vote for the additional AIP
central committee offices under Prop. 14? Do they just so up and get a supplemental ballot for the central committee only? This is a question for Richard Winger.
Back to Demeer, I just found out today from David Christensen that Nancy Spirkoff at the September 2,
2006 Convention was passing out delegate badges to people that showed up at the AIP Convention without
being a delegate to that convention. What do you know
about this fraud? She did the badge pass out prior to
the 10 a.m. Call to Order. Jim King was the Credential
Chairman. Who was on Credential Committee with Jim King?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
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