Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our entire agency staff, 2018 was another milestone year at the California Secretary of State's office. We registered more voters than ever before, allowed entrepreneurs to form their LLCs online, launched six new digital archive exhibits, are revamping our Cal-Access website, upgraded our IT infrastructure, and conducted an election with the largest turnout for a midterm in over 35 years!
This special edition of the SOS Register showcases many of the highlights from the year. We invite you to take a look and thank you for the opportunity to serve!
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Cyber threats to our elections has become the new normal.
This year, to combat these threats, our office worked with the State Legislature and the Governor to secure funding to strengthen our IT infrastructure and election security. The 2018-2019 state budget allocated $134.3 million for counties to replace aging voting systems. Fully leveraged by a dollar-for-dollar match from counties, this will result in $268.6 million towards improvements for election equipment, marking the first significant funding towards voting systems in California in 15 years. California also received $34 million from the US Elections Assistance Commission through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
Thanks to an additional $3 million in the State Budget, we established the new offices of Election Cybersecurity and Enterprise Risk Management. In addition, we enacted new efforts to combat election misinformation online and launched
VoteSure™
, a first-ever public education campaign urging voters to be vigilant about election misinformation online. As threats to our elections evolve, so will we —
and we are already preparing for the 2020 Presidential Election.
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Through the Secretary of State’s
Democracy at Work Program, businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations partnered with our office to promote voter registration and participation. W
hether Californians were requesting a ride with Uber or buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks, the successful partnerships reached millions of Californians ahead of the Primary and General Elections.
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Five California counties—Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo—implemented the
Voter’s Choice Act
for the first time in 2018. In these counties, every registered voter was mailed a ballot, and voters had the option of returning their ballot by mail, at a ballot drop box, or any vote center open in their county. Voters took advantage of expanded access, with all five counties exceeding the statewide turnout rate in both the Primary and General Election. Every California county is eligible to adopt this new model for conducting elections beginning in 2020.
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In 2018, California saw a record number of voter pre-registrations across the state. 290,000 16- and 17-year-olds have pre-registered to vote since the launch of the program in late 2016. This was a part of the Secretary of State’s priority to engage young people across California in the electoral process. The
California Students Vote Project
expanded, partnering with the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) to register students to vote. This expansion led to the launch of the first ever
California University and Ballot Bowl
Competition, with the aim of increasing civic engagement and voter participation among the students attending the major institutions of higher learning in California. To encourage students to become active voters when they are old enough to cast a ballot, the Secretary of State’s office facilitated the
California Student Mock Election
in October of this year. The California Student Mock Election had 477 participating schools cast over 55,000 ballots for Governor, United States Senator, and eleven statewide measures that were on the November 6, 2018 General Election ballot.
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Our Business Programs Division continued to make it easier to do business in California by expanding online filing options through
bizfile California
. For the first time, Californians can form LLCs and file trademarks online.
The Secretary of State’s office is the first state-level Department or Agency to utilize Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence to launch the Eureka Chatbot to assist customers with basic business filing questions. This showcases how public-private partnerships can benefit and modernize the state’s capacity to serve customers. This innovation was recognized by the Center for Digital Media, which awarded the Secretary of State’s Eureka with the Best of California Award, for Best Application Serving the Public.
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The federal government is considering the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census which has the potential to intimidate millions of California residents from participating. California is suing to prevent the question from being added to the survey. We also launched "
All Californians Count
,” a Census 2020 initiative to ensure a fair and accurate count in line with the United States Constitution.
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The
Safe at Home
program is California’s confidential mail program, which was expanded this year to include victims of human trafficking. Now victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, human trafficking, and reproductive health care workers all have access to safety and security in their own homes. This program provides participants with a substitute mailing address, which is accepted by California state, county, and city government agencies in lieu of a residential or other mailing address where the victim can be personally tracked down, keeping the residence address confidential and out of the hands of abusers. The Safe at Home program website was also revamped, providing easier access to apply for the program, and for participants to contact the program.
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The California Automated Lobbyist and Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Search System, or CAL-ACCESS, is a vital tool to track money in politics. Our Political Reform Division is working on updating and improving the tool. We launched a new
web portal
to keep the public informed about the important changes coming soon.
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