| TO: | Honorable Todd Smith, Chair, House Committee on Elections |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB4418 by Dunnam (Relating to voter integrity measures and punishment for related offenses.), As Introduced |
The bill would require each voter registration certificate to be identical to a driver’s license, including identical materials, excluding the voter’s photograph. The bill would also allow voters to request the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to encode the voter’s driver’s license to indicate the voter’s status as a registered voter. DPS would be required to adopt rules to implement this. The bill would also amend the Penal Code to make certain acts a third degree felony. The bill would also require each registrar to report cancellations monthly to the Secretary of State (SOS) and SOS would be required to report cancellations monthly to various entities. It is assumed that costs associated with this bill could be absorbed within existing agencies’ resources. The bill would be effective immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds or on September 1, 2009.
The bill would require each voter registration certificate to be identical to a driver’s license, including identical materials, excluding the voter’s photograph. Counties would be required to issue bar-coded voter registration certificates, resulting in counties purchasing new equipment in order to issue the certificates, or contracting with a vendor to outsource the printing and issue the certificates.
The fiscal impact to a county government to comply with the provisions of the bill could be very significant for printing certificates with a bar-code, laminating, and mailing costs depending on the number of registered voters in a county.
| Source Agencies: | 307 Secretary of State, 308 State Auditor's Office, 405 Department of Public Safety
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, TP, MS, BTA
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