Honorable Larry Taylor, Chair, House Committee on Elections
FROM:
John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2585 by Pena (Relating to the illegal possession of another person's ballot to be voted by mail.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Election Code by allowing to aggregate the number of ballots or carrier envelopes a person possesses on the course of conduct over one or more days, for the offense of illegal possession of another person’s ballot to be voted by mail. Under current statute, possession of an official ballot or official carrier envelope provided to be voted by mail is a Class B misdemeanor if the person possesses at least one but fewer than 10 ballots or carrier envelopes unless the possession does not involve the consent of the voters, in which event is a state jail felony. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor if the person possesses at least 10 but fewer than 20 ballots or carrier envelopes unless the possession does not involve the consent of the voters, in which event the is a felony of the third degree. The offense is a state jail felony if the person possesses 20 or more ballots or carrier envelopes unless the possession does not involve the consent of the voters, in which event is a felony of the second degree.
A state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for a term from 180 days to 2 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000 or Class A Misdemeanor punishment (mandatory post conviction community supervision). A felony of the third degree is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 10 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000. A felony of the second degree is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 20 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.
Expanding the list of behaviors for which a penalty is applied for any criminal offense is expected to result in increased demands upon the correctional resources of counties or of the State due to longer terms of probation, or longer terms of confinement in county jail, state jail or prison. For this analysis, it is assumed the number of offenders convicted under this statute would not result in a significant impact on the programs and workload of state corrections agencies or on the demand for resources and services of those agencies.