SB 970 amends Section 3101 of the California Elections Code to direct the Secretary of State to promulgate regulations that facilitate the secure return of ballots from military or overseas voters when those ballots are delivered via secure electronic transmission methods. The bill does not itself specify particular technologies or require counties to accept any specific transmission method; it instead tasks the Secretary with developing regulatory standards.
This matters because it opens an administrative path toward counting electronically returned ballots from service members and overseas citizens — a change with operational, security, and legal implications for the Secretary of State, county election officials, vendors, and the voters the law aims to serve.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds a new statutory command: the Secretary of State must promulgate regulations to facilitate secure electronic return of military and overseas ballots. It keeps existing requirements that elections officials provide systems to let those voters electronically request ballots and that standardized materials and a declaration form be developed.
Who It Affects
Directly affects the Secretary of State (rulemaking responsibility), county and local elections officials (implementation choices and potential system changes), technology vendors that provide ballot-transmission or verification solutions, and military and overseas voters who may rely on electronic return options.
Why It Matters
By delegating method and security standards to regulation rather than statute, the bill creates flexibility to adopt technical safeguards — but also leaves key decisions about acceptability, chain-of-custody, and verification to administrative rulemaking and subsequent operational guidance.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB 970 inserts a single new, consequential sentence into Section 3101 of the Elections Code: the Secretary of State must promulgate regulations to facilitate secure return of ballots from military and overseas voters delivered through secure electronic transmission methods. The statute does not itself authorize or prohibit specific transmission types, nor does it spell out authentication, encryption, or retention rules.
Instead, it creates a regulatory mandate and leaves the technical details to administrative rulemaking.
The bill leaves intact the existing framework for military and overseas voting: counties must provide systems to allow electronic ballot requests, the Secretary must produce standardized voting materials, and a declaration form (based on the federal write-in absentee ballot) must accompany ballots. SB 970 therefore sits alongside those provisions as the legal trigger that could enable acceptance of electronically returned ballots if and when the Secretary adopts implementing regulations.Practically, the Secretary’s regulations will determine what ‘‘secure electronic transmission methods’’ means in California: whether that includes encrypted email attachments, secure county web portals with multi-factor authentication, digitally signed PDFs, or a combination.
The regulations will also be the vehicle to resolve implementation questions courts and election officials care about — for example, how to verify voter identity without violating ballot secrecy, how to log chain-of-custody for electronic returns, what retention and audit records counties must keep, and whether an electronically returned ballot is treated as the official ballot or as a backup to a paper ballot.Because the bill delegates detail to regulation, the timing, scope, and enforceability of any changes will depend on how the Secretary crafts rules, what technical standards are required, and what guidance counties receive. The statute creates the authority for an administrative path to electronic return; it does not itself create a new mechanism for counting ballots at the county level absent implementing regulations and corresponding operational changes.
The Five Things You Need to Know
SB 970 adds a new clause to Elections Code §3101 requiring the Secretary of State to promulgate regulations to facilitate secure electronic return of military and overseas ballots.
The bill preserves the existing requirement that local elections officials must provide a system to allow military and overseas voters to electronically request a ballot.
The Secretary of State must continue to develop standardized military or overseas voting materials and to prescribe the declaration form, which the statute says should be based on the federal write-in absentee ballot.
The declaration accompanying a military or overseas ballot must include an indication of the date of execution and be a prominent part of all required balloting materials.
The statutory digest accompanying the bill records: Appropriation: NO and Fiscal Committee: YES, and the bill assigns enforcement responsibility for this chapter to the Secretary of State under Government Code §12172.5.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Enforcement responsibility for the Secretary of State
This subsection directs the Secretary of State to enforce the chapter pursuant to Government Code §12172.5. Practically, it centralizes administrative enforcement power in the Secretary’s office — the same office now directed to write the new regulations. That makes the Secretary both regulator and enforcer for the military/overseas voting rules, which affects how compliance expectations and penalties may be applied.
Information for military and overseas voters
This subsection requires the Secretary to make voter registration and ballot-casting procedure information available to qualifying military and overseas voters. While unchanged in substance, its presence matters because it pairs voter-facing outreach and materials with the new regulatory duty: when regulations are drafted, the Secretary must also consider dissemination and clarity so voters understand any new electronic return options and attendant requirements.
Rulemaking mandate for secure electronic returns
This is the bill’s sole substantive insertion: the Secretary must promulgate regulations to facilitate secure return of ballots from military or overseas voters delivered through secure electronic transmission methods. The language is purposely technology-neutral — it compels rulemaking but does not specify standards such as encryption levels, authentication methods, accepted file formats, or whether counties must accept particular methods. Those technical and procedural choices will be resolved in the regulation-writing process.
Local electronic ballot request systems, standardized materials, and declaration form
These subsections restate and preserve operational elements: local elections officials must provide a system to let military/overseas voters request ballots electronically; the Secretary must produce standardized voting materials; and the Secretary must prescribe a declaration based on the federal write-in absentee form, with the date of execution clearly shown. These provisions create the administrative framework that any electronic-return regulations will need to integrate with — for example, by linking the declaration and verification workflow to an electronic-return process.
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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
- Deployed service members and overseas civilians — easier and potentially faster ballot return if the Secretary’s regulations enable secure electronic returns where postal service is unreliable.
- Voters in conflict zones or areas with disrupted mail — access improves where physical return is impractical or unsafe.
- Secretary of State office — gains a clear statutory mandate to set statewide technical and security standards, reducing county-by-county inconsistency.
- Vendors and technology providers specializing in secure transmission and identity verification — new market demand if counties or the state adopt regulated electronic-return solutions.
Who Bears the Cost
- County and local elections officials — potential costs for new software, integration, staff training, and revised procedures to accept, verify, and retain electronically returned ballots.
- Secretary of State — the administrative and technical cost of developing robust regulations, guidance, and oversight; the bill includes no appropriation for these activities.
- IT vendors and integrators — must meet whatever technical and security standards the Secretary prescribes, which could raise development and certification costs.
- State and local taxpayers — potential fiscal exposure from procurement, cybersecurity hardening, and litigation risk if an electronic-return system is adopted without dedicated funding.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill’s central dilemma is access versus integrity: it aims to make it easier for military and overseas voters to return ballots promptly, but enabling electronic returns increases the technical and procedural burdens needed to preserve voter identity verification, ballot secrecy, and chain-of-custody — trade-offs that the Secretary’s forthcoming regulations will have to resolve without a one-size-fits-all statutory prescription.
SB 970 creates authority but leaves many consequential choices for regulation. The statute’s technology-neutral phrasing avoids locking California into specific tools, but that also increases uncertainty: the value of the bill depends entirely on the content and timing of the Secretary’s regulations.
Key unanswered implementation questions include how regulators will balance voter authentication against ballot secrecy, whether counties will be required (versus merely permitted) to accept electronic returns, and how electronically returned ballots will be logged, audited, and reconciled with paper mailings.
Operationally, the bill raises resource and security trade-offs. Secure electronic returns require multi-factor authentication, cryptographic protections, rigorous logging, and a tested chain-of-custody model — all of which cost money and time to implement.
The statute does not appropriate funds or specify an implementation timeline, so counties could face unfunded mandates or divergent adoption if the Secretary’s rules are flexible. Finally, any move toward electronic returns will attract legal scrutiny over equal access, the risk of coercion or interception in some overseas contexts, and how to integrate electronic returns into existing post-election audits and recount rules.
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