Existing law requires a county elections official to take various actions to confirm voters’ residency, including by, among other things, mailing a postcard to each registered voter of the county or obtaining change-of-address data from the United States Postal Service. If the postcard is returned by the post office as undeliverable and the voter has no forwarding address, or if the change-of-address data indicates that the voter has moved and left no forwarding address, existing law requires the county elections official to update the voter’s registration status to inactive and mail notice to the voter of that change.

This bill would require a county elections official to take the following additional steps to provide notice to a voter when United States Postal Service data indicates a voter’s mailing address is no longer valid: 1) if a new mailing address is available via change-of-address data, the elections official would be required to update the voter’s registration record with the new mailing address and send a forwardable notice to the new address to confirm the change; 2) if a new mailing address is not identified and the voter can receive mail at their physical residence, the elections official would be required to send notice to the voter’s physical residence and remove the invalid mailing address from the record; or, 3) if a new mailing address is not identified and the voter cannot receive mail at their physical residence, the elections official would be required to send a specified notice to the voter’s mailing address on the voter’s registration record.