LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD Austin, Texas FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session May 22, 2001 TO: Honorable James E. "Pete" Laney, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board IN RE: HB3181 by Danburg (Relating to procedures for maintaining information on lists of registered voters.), As Passed 2nd House ************************************************************************** * No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated. * ************************************************************************** Local Government Impact The bill would require a county registrar that has not contracted with the Secretary of State for electronic data services under the registration service program to deliver once a week to the Secretary of State, canceled registration a list containing each new registration and all changes in registration information that occurred in the county since the previous list was submitted. Under current statute, the list must be submitted quarterly. The bill would also authorize the Secretary to place into a special fund any lapsed funds after the expiration of the period in which those funds would be disbursed to registrars and issue those moneys to counties that have limited technological resources to upgrade voter registration technology. The lapsed funds are from those funds already appropriated and earmarked for disbursement to voter registrars statewide. Under the provisions of the bill, the Secretary would also be required to give preference to counties with limited resources for technology improvements when transferring surplus computer equipment. The bill would also require the Secretary of State's Office to perform a feasibility study on updating voter registration information via digital transmission. If the results of this study are positive, local voter registrars will be directed by the Secretary of State's Office to begin accepting corrected voter registration information via digital transmission. Voters would not be required to submit a written document accompanied by the voter's signature. Local registrars reported that accepting information via digital transmission would not have a significant fiscal impact. According to the Texas Association of Election Administrators, approximately 120 of the 254 counties contract with the Secretary of State for use of the electronic Texas Voter Registration System (TVRS). Contacted counties with a population over 200,000 that do not contract with the Secretary estimate the requirements under the provisions of the bill would increase their annual operating costs by approximately $96,000. Some counties with populations under 80,000 indicated they contract with a vendor to keep their voter databases current. The vendors charge an average of $175 per report generated. If reporting requirements were to increase from quarterly to weekly, the counties anticipate that the vendors would charge a one-time programming fee that would adjust the system to generate weekly instead of quarterly reports. The programming cost is estimated to range from $6,000 to $7,000. The annual cost for the reports would increase from $700 a year for four reports to $9,100 per year for 52 reports. Switching to a contract with the Secretary, rather than continuing with existing systems, would result in a cost for any computer equipment and software necessary to interface with the TVRS. Those counties that have limited technology resources and that would be eligible for the surplus computer equipment and special funds to assist in upgrading their technology systems from the Secretary of State would have a positive fiscal impact. The fiscal benefit would vary by eligible county and would depend on the level of lapsed funds available, which would change annually. According to the Secretary of State, lapsed funds totaled $17,000 in fiscal year 1997, and $400,000 in fiscal year 1998. These funds are already earmarked to assist voter registrars and vary depending on each county's annual needs. Source Agencies: 313 Department of Information Resources, 307 Secretary of State LBB Staff: JK, RB, SK, DW