BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 3779 |
By: Kacal |
Elections |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Interested parties note that state law allows certain individuals who are related to a deceased voter to send a statement to the local voter registrar notifying the registrar of the death in order to ensure the deceased's removal from the voter rolls. These parties contend that the integrity of the voter rolls would be better protected if families of deceased voters were more aware of the options to notify the registrar and if there were a standard form for submitting the signed statement. C.S.H.B. 3779 seeks to provide families of deceased voters with this information.
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 3779 amends the Election Code to require the secretary of state to prescribe and make publicly available a form that a person related within the second degree by consanguinity or affinity to a deceased voter may use to send to a voter registrar indicating that the voter is deceased, for purposes of triggering the immediate cancellation of the registration by the voter registrar on official notice of ineligibility. The bill establishes that the form must state that the person submitting the form must be related to the deceased person within the second degree by consanguinity or affinity, must require the person submitting the form to sign the form, and must require the person to provide enough information to enable the voter registrar to distinguish the deceased person from any other registered voter. The bill clarifies, for purposes of the statutory requirement that the voter registrar immediately cancel a deceased voter's registration on receipt of such a statement, that the statement is a signed, rather than a sworn, statement.
C.S.H.B. 3779 amends the Occupations Code to require a brochure prepared by the Texas Funeral Service Commission containing information of public interest to include information informing persons that a voter registrar must cancel a voter's voter registration if a person related to the voter within the second degree by consanguinity or affinity provides the registrar with a signed statement by the person indicating that the voter is deceased and that the secretary of state has adopted a form that may be used to make the signed statement.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
January 1, 2016.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 3779 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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