Five of the bills were authored by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat, chair of the Assembly Elections Committee and a former Santa Cruz County clerk, the position that administers elections.
Among the new laws is AB 545, which mandates that curbside voting be available at all polling places. The law also requires tables at polling places to display handheld magnifying glasses and signature cards, which help people with vision issues sign their name efficiently.
AB 626 lets voters return a mail-in ballot at a polling place and have it processed like a normal ballot, which will expedite the counting of those ballots. Under the previous law, vote-by-mail ballots had a signature verification process in which the return ballot's signature is compared to one on file, a process that takes longer than the on-the-spot checks at polling places.
Other bills impacting voting and elections that are now law are AB 292, which provides a clearer explanation to voters with no party preference on which partisan ballots they can request to participate in for those parties' primaries – without changing party affiliation.
There is also AB 398, which allows for electronic and telephone-based requests for replacement ballots, and AB 773, a bill related to elections filings.
