AB 919 adds a new Elections Code provision allowing an agent who holds power of attorney to request confidential voter status on behalf of a person with a cognitive impairment. The application must include a signed statement attesting to the cognitive impairment, and the bill directs election authorities to withhold those registrants from any lists, rosters, or indexes they produce.
The measure also obliges the Secretary of State to report annually to the Legislature on the number of these applications and treats the changes as a state-mandated local program, triggering the usual California reimbursement framework and a carve-out for certain mandates. For election administrators and privacy officers, the bill creates new intake, recordkeeping, and exclusion responsibilities and adds a potential criminal exposure for false statements made under penalty of perjury.
At a Glance
What It Does
Creates a new statutory avenue (added Section 2166.9) letting a person with power of attorney apply for confidential voter status for someone they represent, requires a declaration signed under penalty of perjury, and orders election officials to exclude these confidential registrants from any lists they produce. It also requires an annual report to the Legislature on applications.
Who It Affects
County elections offices (new verification, redaction, and data-exclusion duties), people with cognitive impairments and their agents/POAs, the Secretary of State (reporting duty), and any organizations or vendors that consume voter lists (they lose access to confidential entries).
Why It Matters
The bill extends confidentiality protections to a class of vulnerable voters through third-party applications rather than direct self-request, shifts administrative burden to counties, and raises enforcement stakes by tying the claim to perjury penalties—changing how privacy and access balance in voter data management.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 919 inserts a new provision into the Elections Code that gives authorized agents—those holding power of attorney—the ability to request confidential voter status for individuals who have cognitive impairments. The central operational requirement is simple on paper: the agent submits an application that includes a statement, signed under penalty of perjury, asserting the registrant’s cognitive impairment.
The bill does not prescribe a particular medical certification form in the text, but it does make the signed attestation the linchpin of the request.
Once a county elections official grants confidential status under the new provision, the official must exclude those voters from any list, roster, or index the office produces. That language covers the many lists counties generate and supply to outside parties—campaigns, researchers, political committees, and commercial vendors—so the practical effect is that these confidential registrants disappear from all externally produced data products while remaining in the official registration records.AB 919 also creates a reporting loop: the Secretary of State must deliver an annual report to the Legislature—due January 10 each year—showing how many applications were received under this new authority.
The bill explicitly flags the measure as imposing a state-mandated local program because it increases county duties and ties a false-declaration risk to perjury law, and it includes a statutory statement about reimbursement that carves out certain mandates from state reimbursement and otherwise leaves reimbursement to the established Commission on State Mandates process.For elections administrators, the law will translate into concrete tasks: intake procedures for POA-based applications, protocols for accepting and storing signed attestations, changes to list-generation workflows to filter out confidential registrants, and coordination with the Secretary of State for annual reporting. For agents and family members, the statute offers a straightforward legal route to protect addresses but couples that route with criminal exposure for false statements made under penalty of perjury.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill adds Section 2166.9 to the California Elections Code to authorize power-of-attorney agents to request confidential voter status for persons with cognitive impairments.
The application must include a statement signed under penalty of perjury that the registrant has a cognitive impairment—placing direct legal exposure on the agent who signs.
Elections officials must exclude voters granted confidential status under these provisions from any list, roster, or index they produce, restricting access by campaigns, researchers, and vendors.
The Secretary of State must report to the Legislature no later than January 10 of each year with the total number of applications received under this new authority.
The bill characterizes the changes as a state-mandated local program and includes language limiting state reimbursement for certain mandates while leaving other reimbursement determinations to the Commission on State Mandates.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Application by power-of-attorney for confidential voter status
This provision creates the procedural hook: an agent holding power of attorney may submit an application on behalf of a person with a cognitive impairment. The operative evidence requirement in the text is the agent’s signed statement under penalty of perjury; the statute does not attach a required medical certificate or define a documentary standard. Practically, counties will need to establish an intake form and decide what supporting documents—if any—they will accept or require beyond the attestation itself.
Removal from produced lists, rosters, and indexes
The bill mandates that when county election officials generate any lists, rosters, or indexes, they exclude registrants granted confidential status under this new section. That is broader than merely suppressing an address on a single file: it affects all externally produced data products, which means counties must modify list-generation filters and vendors or recipients must adjust to receiving fewer records. The change raises practical questions about how confidential records remain usable internally while being blocked from external distribution.
Annual tally to the Legislature
The Secretary of State must compile and send an annual report to the Legislature, due January 10, stating the total number of applications received under the new provision. The statute specifies a numeric total only—there is no explicit requirement in the text to report demographics, approvals versus denials, or follow-up investigations—so the initial reporting burden is narrow but still requires the Secretary’s office to collect consistent data from counties.
Signed attestation creates criminal-liability risk for agents
Because the application requires a statement signed under penalty of perjury, the bill broadens the practical scope of perjury risk to agents making these requests. The text does not create a new category of perjury offense but ties existing perjury law to the attestation, meaning willful false statements could subject agents to criminal prosecution. That legal exposure will influence agent behavior and may prompt counties to demand corroborating documentation in practice.
State-mandated local program designation and reimbursement carve-out
The bill acknowledges that it increases county duties and therefore constitutes a state-mandated local program. It also includes language stating that no reimbursement is required for certain mandates for a specified reason and that, for any other mandates, reimbursement will follow the Commission on State Mandates’ normal process. The text leaves the contours of the reimbursement carve-out undefined, which is likely to be a focal point in any post-enactment fiscal dispute between counties and the state.
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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
- People with cognitive impairments who need privacy: They gain a formal, delegated pathway to shield their residence, phone, and email from disclosure without having to file the request themselves.
- Agents and family members holding power of attorney: Agents get a statutory mechanism to protect the registrant’s contact information without requiring separate legal proceedings or conservatorship.
- Disability and privacy advocacy organizations: The bill expands an existing tool for protecting vulnerable people’s contact information, which organizations can use in counseling and intake practice.
- Voters concerned about harassment or exploitation: The expansion broadens confidentiality eligibility to an additional group beyond existing categories (e.g., domestic violence victims).
Who Bears the Cost
- County elections officials: Counties must create intake protocols, verify and store signed attestations, implement filters to exclude confidential registrants from produced lists, and coordinate data for the Secretary of State—each task imposes staff time and system change costs.
- Secretary of State’s office: The SOS must collect application totals from counties and prepare the annual January 10 report, requiring data collection and aggregation processes.
- Campaigns, parties, and commercial list vendors: Organizations that rely on comprehensive voter lists will no longer have access to confidential registrants’ contact details, reducing the utility of purchased or provided voter files.
- Power-of-attorney agents: Agents take on legal risk because their attestation is made under penalty of perjury, creating potential criminal exposure for false statements and possibly deterring legitimate applications.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances two legitimate goals—protecting the privacy of vulnerable voters and preventing misuse of confidentiality—by letting agents request protections but anchoring the request to a criminally risky attestation; that trade-off protects privacy quickly but risks both uneven implementation across counties and the chilling of valid requests due to perjury exposure and unclear verification standards.
The bill’s core protection is an attestation signed under penalty of perjury, but the statute leaves major procedural details to county practice. The text does not define what level or kind of "cognitive impairment" qualifies, whether a conservator or guardian qualifies as an agent, or whether counties can require medical documentation beyond the attestation.
That ambiguity creates a likely patchwork of county responses: some counties will accept the attestation alone; others will ask for medical records or court documents, increasing burdens on families and county staff.
Operationally, excluding registrants from "any list, roster, or index" has technical consequences. Voter registration systems will need reliable flags and export filters so confidential entries remain accessible for internal election tasks (ballot mailing, polling-place management) but invisible in distributed products.
Implementing those safeguards will require engineering work, vendor coordination, and training. Finally, the combination of an attestation-based pathway with perjury exposure creates a deterrent effect—agents may avoid applying to limit criminal risk, which could defeat the bill’s protective intent if legitimate beneficiaries remain unprotected.
The fiscal phrasing is also a point of uncertainty. By labeling the changes a state-mandated local program but carving out reimbursement for certain mandates, the bill hands counties an unclear fiscal picture.
Whether counties can secure reimbursement through the Commission on State Mandates depends on later determinations and could leave local budgets to absorb upfront costs.
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