May 5, 2003
Presented by Beryl Flom in San Diego
Copresident, League of Women Voters of San Diego

Voting is a fundamental citizen right that must be guaranteed. The League of Women Voters of California believes it is government's responsibility to protect this right through regulations and procedures that encourage an informed and active electorate.

Today we would like to focus on the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requirement of a centralized, interactive, computerized voter registration list. The League urges you to make this a high priority, with the state applying available HAVA funding and making every effort to meet the January 1, 2004 deadline. State action must be taken as soon as possible to (1) standardize systems so that all local election officials can access and update the voter list and (2) coordinate with the databases of other agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles.

P The statewide list will allow voter registration information provided by citizens to be verified and corrected. It will also facilitate address changes and other list maintenance. Please ensure that procedures for processing, updating and purging voter registrations are uniform and nondiscriminatory and have safeguards to prevent the erroneous removal of eligible voters from the rolls. A complete match of all pertinent data must be required before a voter is deemed ineligible or a registration is considered a duplicate. As the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires, the voter must have notice and the opportunity to correct errors before being removed from the list, and the fact of nonvoting may not trigger removal of a voter from the list.

P The statewide voter registration list is extremely important in the case of citizens who register by mail. HAVA requires all new registrants to provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. In addition, a citizen who registers by mail and has not previously voted in an election jurisdiction is required to present photo identification or other identifying documents when voting for the first time, either in person or by absentee ballot. This requirement is burdensome to voters and invites nonuniform and discriminatory application by election officials. The statewide voter list will mitigate this requirement in two ways: First, registrants who are matched or verified through the use of the linked databases are exempted, and second, once the voter registration list covers the entire state, voters who move and re-register in a new county will not need to present ID when first voting.

P The statewide voter list should be available to all local election officials on election day, preferably through an online laptop computer at each polling place. We also urge that procedures be put into place to prevent unauthorized access to the list, both to protect voters' privacy and to avoid identity fraud.

P We endorse the recommendations of the Los Angeles Voter Empowerment Circle concerning the statewide computerized voter registration list and ID requirements for first-time voters.

In summary, the League of Women Voters urges an implementation plan that minimizes the restrictions on access to voting dictated by HAVA and makes our election systems more reliable for all California citizens.