But Assemblyman Evan Low (pictured), D-San Jose, wants to go in a different direction on voting. He has introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, which would lower the voting age from 18 to 17. First it needs to get two-thirds support in both the Assembly and the Senate, then approval of a majority of state voters.

Twenty-three states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will be 18 on the day of the general election. Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, has introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 4 to allow such voting in California.

But according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis, no state allows voting at age 17 in general elections.

“Lowering the voting age will give a voice to young people and provide a tool to hold politicians accountable to the issues they care about. Young people are our future, and when we ignore that we do so at our own peril,” Low said in a statement provided to the Sacramento Bee.

Last year, Low’s similar proposal got 46 votes in the Senate – eight shy of the two-thirds threshold. He believes with Democrats now holding 61 of the Assembly’s 80 seats and 29 of the Senate’s 40 seats, his chances of making the ballot are much improved.

Republicans have been generally opposed to Low’s measure at least partly for partisan reasons. Polls in recent years have shown younger voters lean strongly to the left – to the point where a Gallup survey from last August found more of those aged 18 to 29 had a favorable view of socialism (51 percent) than capitalism (45 percent).

San Francisco nixed 2016 measure lowering voter age

But it’s not clear if Democrats will see the change as a way to gain a political advantage or are even enthusiastic about the idea. In May 2016, in San Francisco – where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8 to 1 – the Board of Supervisors put Measure F on the November ballot, which would have lowered the voting age to 16 for local elections. But voters rejected it 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent, a 15,000-vote spread.

The debate over the measure likely foreshadowed the debate to come in the Legislature over Low’s bill.

Supporters said 16- and 17-year-olds were as capable as adults of making smart, informed election choices. They also said the voting change would promote awareness of civics at a time when polls show many young people are unfamiliar with basics about democracy.

Critics questioned why the measure had such a different view of young people’s maturity when it came to voting than with other adult privileges.

The close election may have been swung by a critical Chronicle editorial in September 2016.

“Young people must wait until the age of 21 to drink alcohol and, in California, smoke tobacco. They must wait until the age of 18 to serve their country,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “It makes no sense for San Francisco to send the message that voting is a responsibility any less serious than these are.”

The state’s voter-turnout rates hit the skids in the 2014 election cycles, with only 25 percent of registered voters casting a ballot in the June primary and only 42 percent voting in the November general election. State officials viewed the situation as something of a crisis and proposed a variety of reforms to encourage greater participation.

But voter turnout rebounded in the 2016 general election, with 14.6 million people voting during the Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton race. The raw numbers were record-setting, although the percentage of voters (75 percent of those registered, and 59 percent of those eligible) was lower than in the 2008 presidential election, during Barack Obama’s race against John McCain.

There’s little question that a high-profile national election drives far more interest and participation than midterm contests, but state election officials still wonder about ways to encourage more Californians to head to the polls – or drop a ballot in the mail – during lower-profile elections and especially for local races.

There’s much debate over whether a new elections-related law will have a significant effect on the number of Californians who turn out to vote. Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed the “Prime Time Primary Act,” which moves all of California’s primary elections from June to March.

Supporters were concerned that the June date rendered the state’s massive 55 electoral votes largely meaningless because the parties typically know the likely presidential candidate by then. Moving the primary to March – provided other states don’t play leapfrog and move up their dates, also – will make California more of a national player. But it’s uncertain what it might do to voting rates.

“The only other time that a midterm California primary was earlier than June was 2002, when it was in early March,” wrote elections expert Richard Winger in Ballot Access News. “The 2002 California primary had the lowest turnout of any California primary in history, up until that point. Only 34.6 percent of the registered voters cast a ballot.”

The 2014 midterm voting rates were even lower, as noted above. Winger noted that was the first time a midterm primary election was held after California voters approved the “Top Two” primary system in which the primary includes candidates from all parties on one ballot – and then the top-two vote-getters head to the general regardless of their party affiliation.

Supporters of the new system argue that it encourages voter participation because it encourages candidates to reach out beyond their respective parties’ base voters and make an appeal to all voters from all affiliations. But critics of “top two,” including Winger, argue that it suppresses turnout because it keeps smaller parties off the general-election ballot. “Because top-two doesn’t affect presidential primaries or presidential elections, the best evidence that top-two has hurt turnout is the midterm year of 2014,” Winger told me. “Whereas in November 2010, California voters had six parties to choose from for all the statewide offices, in Nov. 2014 all California voters had to vote for a Rep or a Dem or they couldn’t vote at all. That really hurt turnout.”

California lawmakers have passed a variety of other changes affecting voting and registration including laws that “include pre-registration for 16-year-olds, conditional same day voter registration at certain locations, a new Motor Voter program to automate voter registration for individuals when obtaining or renewing identification cards or driver’s licenses with the DMV and a new option for counties to conduct all-mailed ballot elections and use vote centers and ballot drop-off locations prior to election day rather than operate polling places only on election day,” according to the Little Hoover Commission.

Little Hoover, the state’s independent watchdog agency, held a hearing Sept. 28 as part of its ongoing study of statewide voter participation trends and the effect of these recently enacted election reforms. That hearing focused specifically on Los Angeles County, which has more registered voters (5.2 million) than any other jurisdiction in the country. Most testimony centered on the need for “process” changes that make it easier for eligible voters to register and cast a ballot.

“Unfortunately, the lowest voter turnout that we often experience comes during local and municipal elections, which are typically conducted during the odd years,” explained Dean Logan, Los Angeles County’s registrar-recorder and county clerk. “While the importance of local elections is beyond debate, voter participation in these elections has not followed suit.”

He argued that the 2015 passage of Senate Bill 415, the California Voter Participation Act, would eventually help boost these numbers. The measure “prohibits cities, school districts and other special districts from holding elections in odd years if those elections showed worse voter turnout than statewide elections in the past,” according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. The goal is to keep these districts from holding elections when few people are paying attention.

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, argued in her testimony that problems at polling places – e.g., poorly accessible locations with insufficient parking, poorly functioning ballot readers, an inadequate number of bilingual poll workers, etc. – contributes to the problem. She pointed to a Common Cause study concluding that “California’s declining voter turnout is cause for concern, warranting significant and immediate action.”

The report touted election reforms in Colorado, which include same-day registration along with a vote-by-mail system (every registered voter automatically is mailed a ballot) with plenty of drop boxes and vote centers. Brown last year signed SB450, which beginning in 2018 will require that all registered voters be sent a ballot 28 days before an election, so Californians will soon see whether such an approach does much to boost voter participation.

Some election observers, however, argue the problem is more fundamental than the process by which ballots are distributed and collected. For instance, some election experts blame the state’s poor level of representation for low turnout rates. California has, by far, the largest number of voters for each elected politician, meaning they have far less ability to influence an election or a policy decision.

Others blame the state’s dominance by one party, which means that fewer statewide elections have any significant policy ramifications. Most legislative districts have been carved up to so heavily favor one party or the other that there’s little question which party will hold the seat. Still others note that political races and initiatives are dominated by special interests, which breeds cynicism. A 2015 public-opinion survey from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California concluded that “Low trust in government is the top reason for not registering.”

A comprehensive look at California’s voter-turnout situation might also address this question: Are many Californians skipping the vote not because of impediments to receiving and casting a ballot – but because they don’t think their vote really matters?

Steven Greenhut is Western region director at the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

“California elections would be radically retooled, with neighborhood polling places replaced by ‘voting centers’ serving much larger swaths and a vast expansion of early voting,” reported the San Jose Mercury News.

Big changes

Spearheaded by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, the overhaul took shape in a bill advanced by two influential lawmakers from the Los Angeles area — state Sens. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. As the Sacramento Bee explained, “Senate Bill 450 would have county election officials mail ballots to every registered voter. Voters could then mail them in or drop them off at new kiosks that Padilla said would ideally be open beginning 10 days before elections, eight hours a day.”

“The new legislation incorporates ideas previously included in other bills,” as the Los Angeles Times noted. “A pending bill by Allen also calls for voting centers to be open before Election Day. A measure by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, would create secure drop-off sites where ballots could be left before Election Day.”

Another effort to increase vote totals also recently gained traction in Sacramento. “Padilla has sponsored another bill that would register to vote everyone who gets a driver’s license in California, unless they opt out,” the Times reported.

Principles and ideology

The push for reform owed its energy to two complementary, yet competing, factors. On the one hand, voter turnout in California has hit extreme lows in recent election cycles, prompting a general outcry about the importance of broad-based civic participation to the government’s legitimacy. On the other, Democrats have made no apologies for their partisan interest in making ballots as easy as possible to cast. Historically, voters who supported Republican candidates tended to turn out more reliably than those who would be more likely to pull the lever for the other party.

Given their dominance, state Democrats had little to worry in rolling out the new proposal. Purple states often experience razor-thin electoral margins that would make even a small shift in turnout potentially significant. In the absence of that pressure, the bill’s sponsors have been able to play up the value of easy voting. “We’ll probably never see another election in California where more voters go to the polls than vote by mail,” said Allen, according to the Bee. “This is about expanding options and convenience for voters.”

Nevertheless, Republicans have been quick to emphasize the bill’s partisan upshot. Former state party chairman Ron Nehring, now vice chairman of San Diego County’s GOP, said state Democrats “have a turnout problem,” U-T San Diego noted. “Republican voter turnout rates are already high,” he said, suggesting that “more competitive elections” could better mobilize voters than fresh legislation.

Other critics have pointed to studies that suggest expanded early voting programs may fail to increase participation, or actually lead to a decrease. Additionally, the prospect of increased costs may strengthen some resistance to Padilla’s plans.

Early results

SB450 drew its inspiration from a new scheme rolled out in Colorado, where Democrats do not enjoy the advantage they do in California. Padilla himself swung through to confirm the state’s measurable growth in turnout. “In the first year Colorado increased voting options, the state saw 319,225 more ballots cast in 2013 compared with 2011,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “despite both elections lacking a presidential, gubernatorial or congressional race to drive people to the polls.”

Last year, the Chronicle noted, Colorado cracked the top three of states in voter turnout, while California hit all-time lows during its most recent general and primary elections. Oregon and Washington have also boosted turnout with similar schemes of their own.

The notion is both sickening and unconstitutional, but it’s also part of California’s political process dating back to 1911. The Golden State is one of 24 states that use the initiative process.

The issue arises as several other groups in the past month have submitted paperwork to the state Attorney General’s office to get the ball rolling on a wide range of ballot measures. After the paperwork is signed, supporters must collect 365,000 signatures to put their issue before voters.

There are currently 33 measures filed with the AG for the 2016 ballot.

The state’s largest service employees union, the SEIU, submitted a request to the state AG’s office in late April for a measure that would boost the minimum wage statewide to $15 an hour by the year 2021.

Another group seeks to curtail the state’s often-generous alimony law.

Then there’s the aforementioned “Sodomite Suppression Act.”

The latter effort has put the state’s system of proposition-as-change in the national spotlight. State Attorney General Kamala Harris is seeking more time to figure out how to refuse the measure without violating the rights of the gay-killing advocate, who lists his name as Matthew McLaughlin.

Most scholars say Harris can’t halt it; the law allows even something as unconstitutional as murder to be put to a vote.

Every election year, “a lot of people will come up with an initiative idea and throw it into the system, and you have a lot of crackpots,” said Kenneth Miller, associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, who developed the Miller-Rose Institute Initiative Database of all statewide initiatives approved by voters through 2014.

“Most of the things that succeed are done by interest groups, trade association, labor unions, business groups,” Miller said.  “Usually not individuals at large.”

Among states using the ballot to enact statewide policy change, California voters are second only to Oregon in the number of measures approved, 121.

California voters have passed around 35 percent of measures since 1911, when the state approved the initiative process.

Many times these initiatives stem from a group or individuals who are sure that the state Assembly will never pass legislation to address their issue or grievance. Unless otherwise worded, propositions can only be undone by another voter-approved initiative or a legal challenge.

“Most states that use this approach to lawmaking were the western states, which at the time were a lot more politically fluid,” Miller said. “They were just starting to become states and didn’t have entrenched systems.”

Challenges to initiatives

A passed initiative doesn’t mean unchallenged, and California has by far the most challenges to voter decided propositions, with 78 percent being taken on post-passage, according to an analysis of data by CalWatchdog.com.

Since the ‘70s, around half of those challenges have been at least partially successful.

By far the most challenges have come to “Jessica’s Law,” approved with 71 percent of the 2006 vote. The law prohibited all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks, with the goal of keeping them away from children. Nine legal objections have been made. It has so far survived, but one case led to a state Supreme Court ruling in March that it went too far and made it unconstitutionally difficult for convicts to find a place to live.

Its legacy continues to be cited; this session, eight bills cite the proposition in supporting various amendments to the law it created.

The second most frequently challenged proposition, from 1920, allowed non-citizens the right to own property. It was approved by 75 percent of voters. Of the five challenges, three failed, one succeeded in part and the other got rid of the measure’s effect altogether.

The most recent legal challenge to a proposition came regarding 2012’s Prop. 35, which passed with 81 percent of the vote, the highest margin ever for a state proposal. It provided for stringent penalties for human traffickers, though a camp in opposition contended that it peripherally targeted sex workers.

A federal court halted implementation of the measure, and last month the court prolonged the stay until September.

Legal foes, including the ACLU of Northern California, say they will seek a permanent injunction against the voter-approved law if legislation addressing the measure isn’t approved by September.

Prop. 213 in 1996 was approved by 77 percent of the voters and restricted lawsuits by uninsured motorists and drunk drivers. That measure was challenged twice in state court and upheld.

“Crackpots” not going anywhere

The “crackpots” pushing homicidal notions like sodomite suppression will probably be around for some time. Polls indicate California residents feel they are better at lawmaking than their elected officials.

Miller said that doesn’t seem to impede legislative efforts to alter or clarify the process.

Assembly Bill 535, introduced in February, seeks to create more specific language for initiatives. Assembly Bill 1457 would make a minor housekeeping change to a legal provision governing people collecting signatures for an initiative petition.

“You can imagine that state lawmakers would like to maintain a monopoly on lawmaking and not open it up to outsiders,” Miller said.

Added John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute and the University of Southern California: “Why some states allow the initiative and others do not, that is something of a mystery. Legislators usually dislike the initiative, so the puzzle is how so many states managed to adopt the process in the first place, given that it usually took a first action by the legislature.”

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is www.Avalanche50.com

The main items on the ballot were  Charter Amendment 1 and Amendment 2, which respectively changed the city and LAUSD elections to even years, beginning in 2020.

The argument for the amendments were that separate elections like this have low voter turnout. So the elections should be changed to years with bigger items on the ticket, such as the presidential election.

The election itself proved the point as just 9 percent of voters turned out, according to the Los Angeles City Clerk. That was just 1/7^th the 69 percent turnout for the 2012 presidential election.

Both amendments passed with 77 percent of the vote.

The old system was a result of a previous reform from the Progressive Era in California 100 years ago. Other reforms of that day included the state initiative and referendum system and, nationally, the direct election of U.S. senators and women’s suffrage.

In this case, the argument was that separate elections would focus voters’ eyes more on local issues, instead of confusing them in the midst of consolidated elections. That turned out not to be the case. In particular, voters mainly perk up during presidential election years, especially in these modern times of massive TV, newspaper and Internet coverage.

One argument in favor of the change was that the current system discriminated against minority voters. But nothing prevented them from voting. And the Progressives themselves generally favored more open voting for minorities.

In any case, the new, consolidated system will be in force, come 2020.

It seems Los Angeles County is testing the old philosophical question: What if they gave an election and nobody came? The most populous county in the state had the lowest percentage turnout in last November’s election.

While 42 percent of state voters turned out for the general election, Los Angeles County turnout was only 31 percent. The last mayoral city election in Los Angeles saw a turnout of a mere 23 percent.

The California Senate and Assembly election committees are chaired, respectively, by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, D-Culver City. The chairs called a joint oversight committee hearing on Feb. 20 to look for the reasons and solutions of the extremely low turnout in Los Angeles County. YouTube here.

The answer just might be a feeling of powerlessness among voters.

Loyola Law professor Jessica Levinson told the committee the low turnout in Los Angeles elections could be a case of voter apathy. Los Angeles is not a political town, she said. Everyone knows when the Super Bowl and the Oscars occur, but they don’t know when an election happens.

Many suggestions were made at the hearing on why there was a low voter turnout:

• Voters believe their vote doesn’t matter;
• The size of the county takes away the personalization of politics;
• Lack of civic education in the schools;
• Frequency of elections;
• Lack of an interesting ballot;
• Demographics in which the large minority populations which make up much of Los Angeles County’s potential voters have a history of not voting.

Major obstacles

All those items contribute to the low voter turnout. But are there really major obstacles to prevent voters from coming out if they cared to?

Some of those testifying to the committee seemed to think so. Common Cause’s Kathay Feng said the progressives who set up the rules for stand-alone local elections not only wanted a focus on local government, but they were also racist. They didn’t want certain people to vote and they were successful by setting up elections in off years.

Feng, who serves on the committee to move the Los Angeles city elections to coincide with national elections, a measure which will appear on the city ballot in March, said the convenience to the voters of combining elections will bump up the voting totals by as much as a third.

Still, Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State, Los Angeles, may have touched on the reason citizens don’t engage in local elections. He argued that people believe the only election that really leads to change is the presidential election.

If that is so, then many of the suggestions made to increase the vote will probably only do so on the margins.

Change agents

Even if voting is made as convenient as possible — as Jessica Levinson suggested the time might come when everyone can simply vote by pressing some button on their iPhone — an important question remains: Do voters think those votes for local candidates create change?

Do citizens think they have the power through their votes to alter the direction of government? Or do they believe the institutions are so controlled and manipulated by insiders that voting is pointless?

There were higher turnouts in the past when it was arguably more inconvenient to vote.

The key to bringing voters to the polls, rather than constantly devising new systems to make it easier to vote, is for the voters to see themselves as important participants in governing.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen reported:

Updated voter registration numbers released by Secretary of State Debra Bowen today show 23.1 percent of California voters registered without a political party preference – an all-time high. A total of 17,634,876 Californians are registered to vote.

That’s 4.1 million not registered with any party.

Democrats have 7.7 million registered voters, or 43.4 percent.

Republicans have 5 million registered voters, or 28.2 percent.

That means Republican registration is in third place, behind those with no party. On the other hand, Democratic registration is way below half and dropping.

People obviously are dissatisfied with the current system, which is so unresponsive to voter needs. Republicans obviously are having problems connecting with voters. Their current crop of candidates seems to be trying to change, but is unlikely to do better this Nov. 4. Any potential strong improvement is years off.

But Democrats are frozen into subservience to the powerful public-employee unions that write the campaign checks. That’s why pension reform is so halting, and comprehensive changes likely won’t occur until more municipal, and perhaps school district, bankruptcies shake the system during a future recession.

It also doesn’t help that voting seems to be meaningless. In 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, $9 billion in bonds for a high-speed rail project. But the current project being built by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic-led Legislature doesn’t resemble what the voters were promised, as lawsuits against the project have charged.

In 2003, voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promised not to raise taxes and to “blow up the boxes” of bureaucratic waste. Instead, he went on a spending binge and to pay for it raised taxes a record $13 billion.

Might as well stay home and watch reruns of “Breaking Bad.”

Note: The registration numbers were changed from the original, which used the Secretary of State’s 2010 numbers instead of those for 2014.

Just 19 percent say they trust government “Just about always/Most of the time.” Must be government workers and their kin.

An appallingly low 81 percent trust the government “Only some of the time/Never.”

That’s not surprising. At this point, most of us have had experience with long DMV lines, arrogant and even brutal cops, thumb-screws from the IRS or the Franchise tax board and ignorant politicians.

The surprise is why all those 81 percent don’t vote for the Libertarian Party instead of what Ralph Nader calls the “duopoly” of Republicans and Democrats. On the other hand, voting also has plummeted, with just 13 percent taking part in the June 6 primary in Los Angeles.

Even if they’ve never heard it, people seem to be taking to heart the old libertarian slogan, “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.”

But why should we care about people who don’t care about voting, or are too lazy to show up at the polls? It’s even easier if one gets on the registrar of voters’ list of absentee ballots. Then the ballot is mailed to you, and it only takes a couple of minutes to fill out while watching “The Days of Our Lives,” then pop it in the mailbox.

Voting rights are secure in American. In fact, unlike in almost country, you don’t even have to show an ID to vote in most places, including California.

So if people don’t want to vote, why should we care?

By definition, these people are the most apathetic. Which means they aren’t paying attention to what’s going on. Which means they’ll make decisions based on the most irrational factors such as TV ads, how a candidate’s name looks or just a whim on election day.

Here’s a better idea: A lottery for taxpayers. Anyone who files a tax return is entered into the lottery. Out of 100 taxpayers, one winner gets to pay no taxes for a year.

By Katy Grimes

Poll watchers in America are currently people who are also legally registered to vote. But a new bill would change that in California.

If Assembly Bill 817 is passed, non-citizens, also known as legal resident aliens, who are not eligible to vote in American elections, and who may have limited English language skills, would be allowed to work as poll workers at California’s polling stations.

By Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, the bill passed the state Senate on July 8 on a 22-10 party line vote. It currently is being considered in the Assembly.

There is a problem with this bill. Anyone legally registered to vote must be a citizen or a naturalized citizen. In order to become a naturalized citizen, immigrants are required to pass a reading and writing English test.

But not all members of the Legislature agree with Bonta’s AB 817. Some who are opposed to this bill feel it is part of a deliberate process to blur the lines between legal and illegal in California.

Why is this bill needed?

“Would you have someone who had never driven a car teach you how to drive?” Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, asked me.  Logue is on the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee, and voted against this bill. “It’s always been the law of the land that whoever is overseeing poll watchers are people who are also registered to vote, who have a stake in the system, who have basically pledged their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.”

Bonta claims there is a shortage of bilingual poll workers as well as a need to increase civic engagement by residents who are not eligible to vote because they are not yet citizens.

Other lawmakers agree, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who recently said the bill is important for those who legally want to become Americans. “People who have legal status, and are on their way to becoming citizens, are a full part of our democracy,” Steinberg said, according to a KFBK report.

But Logue questioned the need for additional bilingual workers, and noted that when a person passes the immigration test, they’ve already passed a proficiency test in the English language.

AB 817 would allow poll workers who may not actually be proficient enough in English to help voters, Logue said. “We are the only state in the country doing this,” he added.

Creating a need

AB 817 would allow up to five non-citizens to serve at a particular polling site. Those poll workers must be permanent U.S. residents who legally entered the country. But language skills are not a requirement.

However, according to Linda Chavez, former Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and current Chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity, there are exceedingly few persons who are actually eligible to vote who cannot understand English, which is why so many are asking what the need for this bill is.

English skills

Democratic Sen. Norma Torres of Pomona says the workers could provide much-needed help to voters who have limited English skills. She says 2.6 million eligible California voters are not fully proficient in English. But why would naturalized citizens who already passed a written and verbal English test need any voting assistance from non-English-speaking non-citizens?

AB 817 repeals the existing requirement that a person must be a registered voter in order to serve as a precinct board member. As such, the bill also effectively repeals a long-standing principle that poll workers should be similarly situated to the voters whom they serve — citizens registered to vote in the same county.

According to Bonta, more than 2.6 million eligible voters in California are not yet fully proficient in English, and without language assistance, these citizens face challenges in asserting their right to vote and casting an informed ballot. “As the diversity of the state increases, new tools are needed to ensure that language assistance is available 
at the polling place and in the voter registration process,” Bonta said on his Website. “AB 817 addresses this need by expanding the pool of available bilingual speakers to serve
as poll workers and other election volunteers. AB 817 seeks to replicate the successful high school student poll worker program which a number of counties have used to bolster their poll worker recruitment. AB 817 does not impose any mandates on counties.”

“AB 817 will strengthen our democracy by promoting greater availability of bilingual assistance.”

Logue’s response is, “This is about the credibility and integrity of our voting systems.”