BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 2910

By: Klick

Elections

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

It has been suggested that some protections currently in place relating to the confidentiality of personal information obtained for the purposes of voting fail to adequately provide for the confidentiality of certain individuals. H.B. 2910 seeks to address this issue by revising these protections.

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.

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.

ANALYSIS

H.B. 2910 amends the Election Code to expand the list of information furnished on a voter registration application that is considered confidential and that does not constitute public information for purposes of state public information law to include the residence address of a peace officer or special investigator who has residence address information omitted from the person's driver's license, provided that the required documentation of the person's status is submitted to the voter registrar, and the telephone number of any individual whose residence address is confidential. The bill requires documentation submitted by an individual to a voter registrar for the purpose of establishing eligibility for personal information confidentiality to be retained on file with the voter registration application. The bill makes certain provisions prohibiting disclosures of a judge's residence address in connection with election administration applicable to any applicable individual whose residence address is confidential.

H.B. 2910 requires the registrar of a county in which a federal or state judge resides, on receiving notice from the Office of Court Administration of the judge's qualification for office and of the name of the judge's spouse, if applicable, to prepare a memorandum of the notice, indicating the substance and date of the notification, and to retain the memorandum on file with the voter registration application.

H.B. 2910 amends the Government Code to include a special investigator among the individuals who may opt to have excepted from disclosure under state public information law information that relates to the individual's home address, home telephone number, emergency contact information, date of birth, or social security number and information that reveals whether such the individual has family members.

H.B. 2910 repeals the following provisions of the Election Code:

· Section 13.0021(a)

· Section 15.0215(a)

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2019.