June 3, 2020

Senate Appropriations Committee AB 860 Elections: Vote-by-Mail Ballots State Capitol, Room 2206
Sacramento, CA 95814 OPPOSE

Esteemed Committee Member,

Election Integrity Project California, Inc. (EIPCa) OPPOSES AB 860 – Elections: Vote-by- Mail Ballots – urgency bill, as amended as of the date of this letter.

Election Integrity Project California (EIPCa) joins with Governor Newsom and the spirit of AB 860 to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a ballot in a safe and secure environment of their own choosing in November, 2020. No one should be faced with the choice between their health and their franchise.

California’s current laws already thoroughly and completely accomplish that goal.

Approximately 75% of the state’s voters are already slated to receive a vote-by-mail ballot (VBM) automatically for every election. Any other voter who deems it a personal risk to vote in person for this election need only make a phone call any time between now and 7 days prior to Election Day to receive a VBM. There is no need for this law; it is governmental over-reach and it increases the potential for election corruption and ballot fraud.

Using VoteCal data from early May, 2020, EIPCa data analysts have identified at least 458,000 individuals on the active voter list who are likely deceased or relocated to other states. All have been electorally inactive at least since November of 2008, and large numbers have been so for up to 60 years. 178,000 of those registrants have participated in NO electoral activity since their registration, and 2,000 of them are 105+ years of age according to their registration birthdate.

EIPCa data analysists have further determined that 24,000 active registrants are duplicated on the voter rolls, and in an all VBM scenario they will receive two or more ballots. In the recent all-vote-by-mail special elections, EIPCa alerted the SOS, the relevant Registrars of Voters and all candidates to the voters who had received multiple ballots and those who had returned two or more. Our findings were verified in writing by the SOS. If the entire voter roll is sent VBMs in November, this problem would be replicated throughout the state, and election integrity would suffer significantly.

As the preceding numbers would indicate, California is woefully derelict in its responsibility to maintain its voter rolls as mandated by Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act. Voters such as those cited above should have long ago been moved to the

inactive list and then appropriately had their registrations cancelled. Yet under AB 860 a ballot will be sent to their last known address. Not only is this a recipe for widespread ballot abuse, it is a monumental waste of money. The cost of printing approximately half a million ballots and envelopes, and providing the postage to send them to non-existent individuals is a betrayal of the state’s responsibility to use the tax payers’ dollars judiciously.

AB 860 represents an over-reaction to the needs of the current and projected public health situation. As with all over-reactions, it creates significantly more problems and in this case solves none.

Election Integrity Project California opposes and urges the dismissal of AB 860.
Thank you. Should further information be required, please contact Ruth Weiss, Director

Legislative Oversight at 619-820-5175. Yours very truly,

ELECTION INTEGRITY PROJECT CALIFORNIA, INC

Linda Paine, President
Election Integrity Project California 661-313-5251
linda@eip-ca.com