(The Center Square) – A new California bill would make election recounts more expensive.
The legislation, which was approved by the Assembly and has headed to the state Senate, would also allow nonvoters to serve on paid recount boards. That has led some Republican legislators to say this would allow noncitizens to be hired to count votes.
While the bill would make counts more costly, it could also make them easier. Recount requesters would have the option to select the batch order in which the ballots are recounted, which could make it easier to ascertain whether the cost of the recount is worth sustaining.
Assembly Bill 930, authored by Assemblyman Chris Ward, D-San Diego, would require the individuals or groups requesting the state’s rare recounts to pay each morning for each day of staffing the recount boards that count the votes.
The legislation also removes the requirement that the recount boards, staffed by individuals appointed by the local elections official, have to be voters.
“Democrats are claiming AB930 doesn’t allow non-citizens to count ballots– but we have proof in plain English from [the] bill itself,” said Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, on X. “It inserts word ‘individuals’ where words ‘voters of the county” used to be – eliminating citizenship as factor for appointees of recount boards.”
According to an analysis of the bill by the Assembly Elections Committee, “This change appears to be consistent with other recent changes to the state’s elections laws that allowed non-voters (including individuals who are legal permanent residents and students who are not yet old enough to register to vote) to serve as elections workers at polling places and vote centers.”
The committee analysis also found that the bill would also repeal an existing law that requires recount board members to be paid the same as the jurisdiction pays its poll workers.
“It can be challenging to find individuals who are willing to work on recount boards for the same compensation that is paid for poll workers,” the committee analysis said.
“Such a change, however, is likely to increase the costs of voter-requested recounts,” concluded the committee.
Notably, the bill would also allow for recounts by using scanned ballot images instead of re-examining the original ballots.
