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A01258 Summary:

BILL NOA01258A
 
SAME ASSAME AS S00644-A
 
SPONSORHunter
 
COSPNSRRamos, Woerner, Zinerman, Paulin, Gallagher, Lunsford, Reyes, Ardila, De Los Santos, Shrestha, McMahon, Kelles, Dickens, Wallace, Burke
 
MLTSPNSR
 
Amd §3-300, El L
 
Requires every board of elections to employ a minimum of four full time employees in addition to the appointed commissioners within four years and shall employ two of those full time employees within two years; and two additional employees for every twenty thousand active registered voters beyond forty thousand active registered voters.
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A01258 Actions:

BILL NOA01258A
 
01/13/2023referred to election law
01/03/2024referred to election law
01/04/2024amend and recommit to election law
01/04/2024print number 1258a
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A01258 Memo:

NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION
submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A1258A
 
SPONSOR: Hunter
  TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the election law, in relation to establishing minimum staffing levels for local board of elections   PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: This legislation would ensure that each local board of elections is properly staffed with an appropriate number of employees proportional to the number of registered voters.   SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS: Section 1. Amends section 3-300 of the Election Law. Requires boards of elections to employ a minimum of 4 full time staffers and employ an additional 2 employees for every 20,000 active registered voters. Section 2. Effective Date   JUSTIFICATION: Voting is a part of an individual's civic duty. Participation in poli- tical discourse and elections has increased over the past two years. This is largely in part to the fact that New York State has taken affir- mative action to increase voter participation and increase access to voting. Recent chapters allow for early voting, ballot drop boxes, and mail in voting. The State is also poised to adopt automatic voter registration, same day registration, a permanent no-fault absentee ballot program. Many boards of elections currently rely on a mix of full time employees and temporary employees during election seasons. These new programs require a full time staff who is qualified, trained, and up to date with current election law. The State has assisted local boards with funding early voting initi- atives, including most recently, $2 million in additional funding for Local Boards of Elections in the Adopted Budget FY 2021- 2022. A majori- ty of local boards' current staffing structure already comply with this legislation. This would ensure uniformity so that boards of elections are equipped to handle the volume of voters in a given area. Nothing in this law would prohibit a board of elections from hiring more staff than as required by this legislation.   DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PREVIOUS AND AMENDED VERSION OF BILL: The original bill would have required county Board's of Election to hire four additional full time staff members. The amended version would stag- ger that hiring and require that county Board's of Election hire four staff members within four years, which would provide counties with more time to take on additional staff.   LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: 2021-22: A7780A   FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: TBD.   EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately.
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A01258 Text:



 
                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                         1258--A
 
                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions
 
                   IN ASSEMBLY
 
                                    January 13, 2023
                                       ___________
 
        Introduced  by  M.  of  A.  HUNTER,  RAMOS,  WOERNER,  ZINERMAN, PAULIN,
          GALLAGHER, LUNSFORD, REYES, ARDILA, DE LOS SANTOS, SHRESTHA,  McMAHON,
          KELLES  --  read once and referred to the Committee on Election Law --
          recommitted to the Committee on Election Law in accordance with Assem-
          bly Rule 3, sec. 2 --  committee  discharged,  bill  amended,  ordered
          reprinted as amended and recommitted to said committee
 
        AN  ACT  to  amend the election law, in relation to establishing minimum
          staffing levels for local board of elections
 
          The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and  Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:
 
     1    Section  1.  Section  3-300  of the election law is amended to read as
     2  follows:
     3    § 3-300. Board employees; appointment. 1.  Every  board  of  elections
     4  shall  appoint, and at its pleasure remove, clerks, voting machine tech-
     5  nicians, custodians and other employees,  fix  their  number,  prescribe
     6  their  duties,  fix  their  titles and rank and establish their salaries
     7  within the amounts appropriated therefor by the local  legislative  body
     8  and  shall  secure  in  the  appointment  of  employees  of the board of
     9  elections equal representation of the major political parties.
    10     2. Every board of elections shall employ, at  a  minimum,  four  full
    11  time  employees  in addition to the appointed commissioners, within four
    12  years of the effective date of this subdivision; provided, however, that
    13  every board of elections shall employ at least two full  time  employees
    14  within two years of the effective date of this subdivision.  Every board
    15  of elections shall employ two additional employees for every full allot-
    16  ment  of  twenty thousand active registered voters beyond forty thousand
    17  active registered voters.
    18    3. Every commissioner in each board of elections  except  for  commis-
    19  sioners  of  the board of elections of the city of New York, may approve
    20  and at pleasure remove a deputy, establish his title and  prescribe  his
    21  duties. In the city of New York, the board of elections shall appoint an
 
         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD03379-03-3

        A. 1258--A                          2
 
     1  executive director and a deputy executive director whose duties it shall
     2  be  to  supervise  the  operations  of  the board of elections under the
     3  supervision of such board.
     4    § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
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