AB 179

Under current law, a municipal clerk is required, under certain circumstances,

to dispatch special voting deputies to a residential care facility or qualified

retirement home so that the occupants of the facility or home may cast an absentee

ballot in person with the special voting deputies rather than vote in person at the

appropriate polling place or request and complete an absentee ballot by mail. Under

current law, a retirement home is a facility occupied as a primary residence by 10 or

more unrelated individuals. A qualified retirement home is a retirement home that

has a significant number of occupants who lack adequate transportation to the

polling place, need assistance in voting, are aged 60 or over, or are indefinitely

confined.

Under current law, the special voting deputies must arrange with the

administrator of the qualified retirement home or residential care facility one or

more convenient times to visit the home or facility. The administrator of the home

or facility may, upon the request of a relative of an occupant of the home or facility

notify the relative of the time or times at which special voting deputies will conduct

absentee voting at the home or facility.

This bill requires the administrator to provide notice of the dates and times

when the deputies will be visiting the home or facility to the relatives

for whom the

home or facility has contact information for each occupant who intends to vote by

absentee ballot with the special voting deputies.

The bill also provides that an employee of a qualified retirement home or

residential care facility who influences an occupant of the home or facility to apply

for or not apply for an absentee ballot or cast or refrain from casting a ballot or

influences an occupant's decision for whom to cast a ballot is guilty of the Class I

felony.