During the budget process the Legislature, famous for passing the buck—or the bill in this case—reviews mandates it has placed on local agencies. By law, Sacramento is required to fund any mandate it imposes on local agencies but when the state’s coffers run dry the Legislature routinely suspends or repeals specific mandates and uses the money for something else. The state currently owes about $1.8 billion to local governments for state mandated programs.

This is not fair to local governments which are then are left with some tough choices. Do they suspend programs on which constituents have come to rely or just cobble together some dollars and run the program on a string?

This Sophie’s Choice is particularly tough when it comes to election mandates.

Today, the Senate Budget Subcommittee on State Administration and General Government will consider nine such election mandates on issues from absentee ballots and voter registration to voter identification procedures. These mandates that have not been paid for, or technically required, by the state since 2011. Yet can you imagine the backlash if a county were to eliminate absentee ballots?

This presents a potential patchwork of election procedures throughout the state. Last March the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) urged caution on travelling down this road. Their budget recommendation stated, “the state has a significant interest in maintaining uniformity in its elections. Many of the state’s elected officials serve districts that span multiple counties. Variation in election policies among those counties would result in voters in the same district having access to different voter programs…suspending elections mandates could lead to inconsistencies in elections, voter confusion, and possibly lower turnout.”

I currently represent nine counties that number will rise to eleven if I am re-elected this fall. As of today, the debt to the counties sits at over $114 million for under-funding mandates during past elections. How much longer can counties hold out if they are forced to continue footing the bill? A struggling county—and many of our counties are—could be forced to abandon absentee ballot programs leaving a mishmash of election systems throughout the state. Would elderly or homebound people now be disenfranchised?

Even more troubling is the potential for fraud. Absentee and provisional ballots are scrutinized thoroughly because of the potential for fraud. California’s Election Code dictates that certifying provisional ballots be a two-stage process: first, the county registrar must be sure the name on the ballot matches a voter registration on the county list, and second, the signature on the provisional must match that on the county list. It is this second crucial step, a mandate that the Secretary of State herself calls “a critical method to prevent voter fraud” that was suspended in last year’s Budget Act.

Elections and our right to vote in them is a fundamental premise of democracy. If the Legislature wants to preserve the integrity of the election process, it is vital that these mandates be funded and money owed be paid to the counties. In 2013, I urged my colleagues to consider the concerns raised by the LAO and reject the Governor’s proposal to suspend election mandates. Today I am asking my colleagues to re-fund these mandates and put the brakes on a trip down a very slippery slope.