AB 1392 designates the residence address, telephone number, and email on the affidavit of registration for any elected official or candidate as confidential and directs county elections officials to mask those fields on voter records. The Secretary of State must supply county election offices with lists of federal and state candidates; counties maintain local candidate lists and must make the listed records confidential within five business days of receiving nomination paperwork.
The statute narrows public access while creating a defined disclosure pathway: confidential information may be released only for bona fide journalistic or governmental purposes subject to an application process (including verification requirements) and preserves limited government immunity for counties unless disclosure rises to gross negligence or willfulness. The law also establishes opt-out and reapplication mechanics and a 60‑day carryover when a confidential voter moves between counties.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires counties to redact an elected official’s or candidate’s residence address, phone, and email on the affidavit of registration and to exclude those voters from lists, rosters, or indexes they produce. The Secretary of State provides county-level lists for federal and state candidates; counties add local candidates and must act within five business days of receipt or filing.
Who It Affects
Elected officials and candidates at federal, state, and local levels gain automatic confidentiality for specified contact fields; county elections officials and the Secretary of State are responsible for implementing the masking and list transfers. Journalists and other parties seeking access face a formal application process to obtain the withheld data.
Why It Matters
AB 1392 changes the default on voter-file transparency for public officeholders, trading broader access for stronger privacy protections tied to officeholding. That rebalancing affects campaign workflows, public‑records users, and election administrators who must build procedures and recordkeeping for requests and opt-outs.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 1392 makes three pieces of contact information—home address, telephone number, and email—on the voter registration affidavit confidential for anyone classified as an "elected official or candidate." The statute defines that term to include federal, state, and local officeholders and candidates. For state and federal contests the Secretary of State compiles and sends county-by-county lists of affected individuals; for local contests counties add names to their own lists.
Once a county receives notice or a filing, it has five business days to change the voter record so those three fields are not publicly available.
The bill also controls how those confidential records travel and interact with other administrative processes. Counties must exclude confidentially-designated voters from any lists, rosters, or indexes they produce, and they must manage movement between counties: when a confidential voter moves, the receiving county is to honor the prior confidentiality for 60 days while the voter applies for status locally; if the voter does not secure confidentiality in the new county within that window, the designation is removed.There are built-in choices and accountability steps.
Candidates may opt out of confidentiality on their candidate filing statement; sitting elected officials may opt out by submitting a letter that the county will process within five business days and notify the Secretary of State and other affected local officials. Confidential status persists until the official leaves office or, for a candidate, until the winner takes office.
Finally, disclosure of confidential contact fields is limited to bona fide journalistic or governmental purposes and is subject to a documented application and verification workflow specified for state/federal requests and administered at the Secretary of State or county level as appropriate.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Counties must redact an official’s or candidate’s residence address, phone, and email within five business days of receiving nomination information or a filing.
When a confidential voter moves between counties, the new county must honor the prior confidentiality for 60 days while the voter applies for the designation locally; after 60 days the designation is removed if not reapplied for.
An elected official can opt out by sending a written letter; the county must remove confidentiality and notify the Secretary of State and other local election offices within five business days.
Disclosure of confidential contact information is allowed only for bona fide journalistic or governmental purposes; state/federal journalistic requests require a California Voter Registration File Request, media affiliation or press pass, and a sworn declaration.
Counties and their employees are shielded from negligence claims over disclosures except where there is gross negligence or willful misconduct, and counties are not liable for actions taken based on erroneous information received from the Secretary of State.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Who qualifies as an elected official or candidate
This provision defines the covered population broadly: any federal, state, or local elected official or candidate for those offices. It's a simple but consequential definitional hook: the confidentiality protections attach to the status of being an official or candidate, not to other risk-based categories like victim status or threat assessments.
Which voter data fields become confidential
The statute identifies three discrete fields—residence address, telephone number, and email address—on the affidavit of registration and makes those fields confidential for covered individuals. That narrow scope keeps other registration data (name, party, registration status) public while targeting the most sensitive contact points used for doxxing or at‑home contact.
List production and five-business-day trigger
The Secretary of State must furnish county election officials a list of federal and state candidates by county when nomination papers are filed; counties add local candidates to their own lists. Receipt of a list or county filing triggers a hard five-business-day deadline for the county to apply the confidential designation to the voter record. Operationally, that creates a predictable SLA for IT and staffing but also a tight window where records remain unredacted if implementation lags.
Excluding confidential voters and cross-county moves
Counties must exclude confidential voters from any lists, rosters, or indexes they produce. The section also establishes a 60-day portability rule when a confidential voter relocates to a new county: the new county must notify and honor the prior confidentiality for 60 days while the voter pursues local registration; if confidentiality isn’t secured in that window, the designation ends. This balances continuity of protection with local verification, but it also requires active case-handling by receiving counties.
Responsibility of the official or candidate to confirm confidentiality
The bill places an affirmative duty on the official or candidate to contact their county elections official to ensure their voter registration record is made confidential. That creates a compliance step for officeholders and candidates and shifts some implementation responsibility to the individual rather than fully automating the change.
When confidentiality ends
Confidential status persists for an elected official until they leave office and for a candidate until the winning candidate takes office. This connects the confidentiality to the public duty: the protection is not indefinite and terminates at the end of the official’s or candidate’s period of officeholding as defined in statute.
Liability protections for counties and employees
The statute immunizes counties and their elections officials from liability for following incorrect information from the Secretary of State and substantially raises the bar for civil claims by precluding ordinary negligence suits—plaintiffs must show gross negligence or willfulness. That limits legal exposure for administrators but reduces private remedies for harmed individuals where disclosure occurs through administrative error.
Retroactive contacts, opt-outs, and disclosure for journalistic or governmental purposes
Officials already in office must contact county officials to secure confidentiality; counties are required to honor that outreach. Candidates can opt out via the candidate filing statement; sitting officials can opt out by letter, and counties must process opt-outs and notify relevant offices within five business days. The statute confines permitted disclosures to bona fide journalistic or governmental purposes and sets out an application and documentation regime: state/federal journalistic requests go to the Secretary of State with a voter-file request form, media affiliation proof or press pass, and a sworn declaration; local requests go to counties, which must keep records and may reject noncompliant requests.
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Explore Elections in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Elected officials and candidates — they gain default shielding of home address, phone, and email on public voter records, reducing risks from doxxing, harassment, or threats tied to private contact information.
- Journalists and verified media outlets — the law preserves a clear, documented pathway for legitimate reporters to request confidential contact details, creating predictable rules for access and a record trail for requests.
- County elections officials and the Secretary of State — they receive statutory clarity about responsibilities, timelines (five business days), and immunity contours, which simplifies operational decision-making and risk assessment.
Who Bears the Cost
- County elections offices — new administrative work: applying redactions within five business days, maintaining and updating candidate lists, processing journalistic requests, tracking opt-outs and 60-day move cases, and retaining request records. That likely requires staff time and possible IT changes.
- Journalists and small newsrooms — they face new documentary steps (forms, affiliation proof, sworn declarations) to access information long available in public files, increasing compliance costs and potential delays for reporting.
- Public‑records users and transparency advocates — the public loses immediate visibility into officials’ contact fields on voter files; watchdogs and researchers will need to navigate the application process or rely on other sources.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between protecting the private safety and privacy of officeholders by removing sensitive contact fields from public voter files and preserving the public’s and press’s ability to access government-related contact information for oversight and reporting; the bill solves one problem (privacy risk) by narrowing transparency and imposing administrative hurdles that can delay or block legitimate public‑interest uses.
The bill resolves a discrete privacy risk for officeholders but creates operational and legal frictions. Practically, the five-business-day deadline and the Secretary of State–to‑county list handoff require synchronized processes across jurisdictions; any lag or mismatch leaves a window when contact fields remain public.
The 60-day carryover for movers protects continuity but forces receiving counties to run proactive outreach and case tracking for transients. Those mechanics are modest on paper but will translate into recurring workload and likely require adjustments to voter‑file systems.
Substantively, the statute tightens access by limiting disclosures to "bona fide journalistic or governmental purposes," yet it delegates significant interpretive work to elections officials and to guidance tied to Article I, Section 2(b) of the California Constitution. That creates ambiguity: officials must decide whether a requester’s declared purpose meets the standard, and inconsistent decisions across counties could produce uneven access.
The high threshold for civil liability (gross negligence or willfulness) protects administrators but reduces legal remedies for individuals whose confidential data are improperly disclosed, shifting the balance toward administrative protection over individual redress.
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