AP16:012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 19, 2016
CONTACT: Sam Mahood
(916) 653-6575
Proposed Initiative Enters Circulation
Online Voting. Initiative Statute.
SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced the proponent of a new initiative was cleared to begin collecting petition signatures today.
The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials. The Attorney General’s official title and summary for the measure is as follows:
ONLINE VOTING. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Requires Secretary of State to develop or contract with a third party for an online voting system by December 31, 2017. Appropriates $45 million from the Voting Modernization Bond Act of 2002 to finance the new system. Contains security and auditing requirements. Requires testing of system in local elections. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increased costs to state and local governments to administer elections. These costs include (1) one-time costs—possibly tens of millions of dollars—to develop new information technology systems and (2) ongoing costs—possibly millions of dollars annually—to administer elections. (15-0108.)
The Secretary of State’s tracking number for this measure is 1766 and the Attorney General’s tracking number is 15-0108.
The proponent of the measure, Chase Martinez, must collect the signatures of 365,880 registered voters (five percent of the total votes cast for Governor in the November 2014 general election) in order to qualify it for the November 2016 ballot. The proponent has 180 days to circulate petitions for the measure, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials by July 18, 2016. The proponent can be reached at (916) 223-6976.
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