SB 1233, authored by state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, would allow victims of domestic violence to withhold their addresses from various official documents and records for which they would otherwise be required to submit such information, such as voting or enrolling a child in school. The bill makes permanent a program, sponsored by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, that had been due to expire Jan. 1, 2013. Read More »
"I became motivated to get it right before we had another horrible disaster for our whole democracy," said Bowen. "We couldn't afford another election where there was vast mistrust of the results." Read More »
Secretary Bowen visited the Mountain Area to inform voters what she is doing to protect against voter fraud, empower voters, work with teens through mock trials, work on open government, the Safe at Home program -- a confidential address program for survivors of abuse -- and to take questions from the partisan crowd. Read More »
Bowen met with County Clerk and Auditor-Controller Debi Russell and her elections staff, as well as CAO Craig Pedro and District One Supervisor Liz Bass. Some discussion focused on the recently passed Proposition 14, which Bowen calls a "game changer" in the election process. California will be moving to an open primary system in 2012, and all 58 California counties will need to prepare for changes over the coming year. Read More »
Yet Bowen also believed getting to that point would need more time from both election officials and technology companies to make sure that potential voting software is essentially bullet-proof. Read More »
A panel discussion will follow the screening, featuring Secretary of State Debra Bowen...San Francisco police Inspector Tony Flores, executive director of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium Beverly Upton, and activist Victor Rivers. Read More »
Under federal law, voters who cast provisional ballots are entitled to find out if their ballot was counted, said California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Read More »
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is embracing Twitter as another way to share election results. She says the social media format allows Twitter followers to set the agenda. Read More »
Shortly after taking office in 2007, Bowen commissioned a top-to-bottom review of machines throughout the state to identify problems and ensure accuracy. She then drew the fury of some county registrars by severely restricting use of some electronic voting machines just six months before the state's 2008 presidential primary. Read More »
"When you vote by mail, you never have to miss an election because you can't get to your polling place," said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, the state's chief elections officer. Read More »
