AB 1662, authored by Assembly Member Paul Cook (R-65) and sponsored by CfER, would require that absentee voters located overseas be able to use ranked ballots when voting in elections that might lead to a runoff. With one committee hearing and one floor vote left to go, it has yet to receive a "no" vote in the legislature.

When the first and second rounds of a two-round runoff election occur close together, it can be difficult for absentee voters located overseas to receive their second-round ballots (which aren't printed until the first-round results are known) and return them in time to be counted. Only a small number of California cities have second rounds within 45 days of the first round, but a larger number have second rounds 60 to 70 days after the first. In special elections to fill vacancies in Congress and the state Legislature, the runoff is either 56 or 63 days after the first round.

Because the right to cast an effective vote is at stake, this is a significant problem even if it affects only a few voters in only a few jurisdictions.

In the long run, CfER advocates replacing two-round runoffs with IRV. In the meantime, providing ranked ballots to those voters who might not be able to receive and return their runoff ballots in time is a useful reform. Under this bill, affected voters would receive both a normal ballot for the first round, and an optional ranked ballot. Only the normal ballot would be counted in the first round. The ranked ballot would be counted in the event of a runoff, and would count for that candidate in the runoff who was ranked highest on the ballot.

Louisiana, Arkansas and South Carolina have already adopted this reform. A bill to expand it from active military to all overseas absentee voters passed unanimously in Arkansas after the program was implemented during the 2006 election. The city of Springfield, Illinois passed a local measure on April 17 by a 91-9 margin, and related legislation passed the Illinois Senate this spring but died when the legislative session ended before the House could act on it.

In September 2006, CfER Legislation Director Pete Martineau began talking to staff of the Assembly Veterans Committee about bringing this reform to California. Sacramento County Coordinator Chuck O'Neil later joined Pete's efforts to build legislative support. Assembly Member Cook introduced AB 1662 on February 23. During March, while Pete was lining up endorsements from the National Guard Association of California and the California State Commanders Veterans Council, I joined the team to provide research and technical support.

AB 1662 passed the Assembly Elections Committee on April 17 on a 6-0 vote with one member absent. It passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 31 by another bipartisan vote of 17-0, after having been delayed a couple of weeks by a committee staff analysis that had been based on a misreading of the bill that dramatically inflated the expected cost. It passed on the Assembly floor, 77-0 with one member absent and two abstentions, on June 6.

On July 10, the bill passed the Senate Elections Committee, 4-0 with one abstention (committee chair Ron Calderon). It is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 20.

Along the way, the language has been refined three times to include all overseas absentee voters rather than just members of the active military, respond to criticism from committee staff and county registrars, and modify elements of the Arkansas law (from which committee staff and Legislative Counsel copied the original language) that need to be different in California.

Although AB 1662 has received nearly unanimous support from members of both major parties, it started out as a Republican project. Assembly Member Cook was joined by six Republican coauthors before the first (and so far only) Democratic coauthor, Mike Davis (D-48), also signed on. As far as I know, the bill is CfER's first opportunity to work closely with a Republican legislator.

So far, support from Veterans organizations and the state League of Women Voters, plus the obvious good sense of the proposal, plus the hard work of Assembly Member Cook, his staff, and Pete and other CfER activists, has kept AB 1662 on track. We're not done, and new problems may arise. But we're in a (very friendly) race with AB 1294 to be CfER's first bill to be signed into law.

For updates, keep visiting the CfER AB 1662 action page.