SACRAMENTO, January 9, 2008 – A bill by Assemblymember Curren Price (D-Inglewood) to ensure that voters know the amount of postage needed to return their ballot by mail cleared the Assembly Elections & Redistricting Committee.  AB 984 requires counties to notify voters of the amount of postage that is required to return a vote-by-mail ballot when more than one first-class stamp is required.

“As an increasing number of voters choose to vote-by-mail, it is important that we do everything that we can to ensure that those voters have the tools they need to complete and return their ballots,” said Price, Chair of the Assembly Elections & Redistricting Committee.  “AB 984 ensures that voters know the postage cost to mail ballots, so voters won't have to worry about their ballots being returned and their votes going uncounted."

Voters traditionally have been able to return ballots by mail with a single first-class stamp.  However, since the 2000 Presidential Election, most California counties have changed their voting systems, switching to systems that use larger ballots.  As a result, an increasing number of California voters have had to include more than one first-class stamp in order to return their ballots by mail.  When a voter puts a ballot in the mail without sufficient postage, there is a risk that the voter's ballot will be returned by the Postal Service, and the voter will be disenfranchised.  AB 984 seeks to protect against this problem.

At the November 2006 general election, voters in 25 counties had to include more than one first-class stamp in order to return their ballots by mail.  In at least one county, voters who included 2 first-class stamps on their ballot still did not have the proper amount of postage to return that ballot to the county elections office.

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill – AB 1167 by Assemblymember Pedro Nava – that contained a similar provision.  In his veto message, the Governor said that he was vetoing the bill due to concerns with other parts of the bill, but stated that the requirement for election officials to notify vote-by-mail voters if a ballot will require more than one stamp to return in the mail was "a common sense proposal that appropriately places shared responsibility on all parties."

AB 984 next moves on to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Assemblymember Curren Price serves the 51st Assembly District, which includes Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Playa Vista, Westchester, Lawndale, West Athens, Lennox, Alondra Park, West Compton, Del Aire, and Willowbrook, as well as portions of the unincorporated area of Ladera.