Initiative Language

Click Here to download the first draft of the initiative that VSN has submitted to the California Secretary of State. Revisions will be made and two separate drafts are awaiting title and summary.


Fact Sheet

The people of California deserve to have secure and fair elections. Now more than ever, the Vote Safe Now initiative is needed to restore trust in our elections.

Author of Jessica’s Law and Amber Alert, initiative proponent Senator George Runner represents the 17th Senate District and is a strong taxpayer advocate. For more information, please visit www.GeorgeRunner.com.

The Vote Safe Now initiative has three key provisions, which protect everyone's right to vote:

  • VOTER PHOTO ID REQUIREMENT – Protect the integrity of all votes by verifying voters’ identity.
    • Modeled after the Indiana law, upheld recently by the United States Supreme Court.
    • The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not require identification of some kind to verify voter identities.
    • Individuals must present photo identification to rent movies, make store purchases, fly on commercial aircraft, and many other normal activities. Why is it a burden to require this of those exercising the precision right to vote?
  • MILITARY VOTERS – Ensure our brave military men and women have their votes counted.
    • Allows a county registrar to accept military ballots, cast within the legal time frame, for up to 15 days after the election.
    • Nineteen states already have a process for counting military ballots received after Election Day.
    • The Associated Press recently reported that one out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted.
    • California had 30,000 "lost" votes and 7,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable or rejected out of 103,000 ballots mailed overseas.
  • ABSENTEE BALLOT VOTER VERIFICATION– Requires election officials to verify absentee ballot voters’ signatures and identification.
    • Voting by mail presents the greatest opportunities for voter fraud and groups like ACORN represent an organized effort to exploit individual voters through the absentee voter process.
    • Helps defeat voter fraud while also protecting the identification information of the voter.
    • Nearly 45 percent of votes cast in the 2008 Presidential Election were votes by mail.
    • Vote SAFE removes the subjectivity from the process of determining properly cast votes by elections’ officials.