AO 2010-24: Party committee must use federal funds for certain salaries related to voter registration activities

The Republican Party of San Diego County must use federal funds to pay the salary of an employee who spends more than 25 percent of her time on voter registration activity, during the last 120 days before a regularly-scheduled federal election. During that time period, voter registration activity is considered federal election activity (FEA).

Background

The Republican Party of San Diego County (the “Committee”) is a local committee of the Republican Party. In May 2010, the Committee hired a Voter Registration Coordinator (the “Employee”) to recruit, train and supervise contractors hired by the Committee to perform voter registration activities.

The Employee spends approximately 80 percent of her time on the following activities:

• Recruitment (20 percent): includes posting positions on job boards, meeting with clubs to encourage members to participate in registering voters, interviewing potential contractors, and scheduling orientations for contractors;
  
• Orientations (20 percent): includes meeting with potential contractors to communicate the Committee’s voter registration program’s requirements, and training contractors on voter eligibility requirements, legal rights to solicit, and table set-up instructions;
  
• Contractor management (20 percent): includes responding to requests from business owners for verification of contractor status and program details, and completing vendor applications on request; and
  
• Validation of completed registrations (20 percent): includes reviewing the voter registration cards for missing information or errors made by the voters, reviewing and verifying information on voter registration cards, reporting any suspicious information revealed on such review to the Registrar of Voters, and personally submitting the voter registration cards to the Registrar of Voters.
  

The remaining 20 percent of the Employee’s time is spent on the following activities:

• Material preparation (10 percent): includes designing and preparing signs and other voter registration materials for the contractors;
  
• Events (5 percent): includes researching potential events for voter registration, determining the number of contractors to attend such events, setting up and tearing down voter registration booths; and
  
• Calculation of contractor payments (5 percent): includes all activities related to calculating the payments to be received from the California Republican Party, and the payments to be distributed to each contractor depending on the number of voter registrations in targeted State Assembly and State Senate districts.
  

The Committee has reported the Employee’s activities as FEA, but wants to know whether the employee’s work constitutes voter registration activity, and whether revised FEA regulations (effective December 1, 2010) would alter that conclusion. Finally, the Committee would like to know whether the Executive Director’s supervision of the Employee also constitutes voter registration activity.

Analysis

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (the Act) requires state, district and local party committees to pay for FEA with either federal funds or a combination of federal and Levin funds. 2 U.S.C. §441i(b). The Act’s definition of FEA includes voter registration activity during the period beginning 120 days before the date of a regularly scheduled federal election, and ending on the date of the election.

Under Commission regulations in effect at the time, voter registration activity was defined as "contacting individuals by telephone, in person, or by other individualized means to assist them in registering to vote.” 11 CFR 100.24(a)(2). It includes, but is not limited to, “printing and distributing registration and voting information, providing individuals with voter registration forms, and assisting individuals in the completion and filing of such forms.” Id. 

In the advisory opinion, the Commission noted that the Employee spends 20 percent of her time validating complete registrations, including assisting individuals in registering to vote by reviewing their voter registration cards for missing information or errors, and taking the voter registration cards and turning them in to the Registrar of Voters. The Commission also noted that the Employee spends 10 to 15 percent of her time preparing materials for use in registering voters, such as signage, in-field voter registration materials, and setting up and tearing down voter registration booths. The Commission concluded that these activities, consuming 30 to 35 percent of the Employee’s time, fall within the definition of voter registration activity during California’s FEA periods. Further, the Commission concluded that, regardless of whether any of the Employee’s other activities also fall within the definition of voter registration activity, 11 CFR 106.7(d)(1)(ii) and 300.33(d(2) require state, district and local party committees to use federal funds to pay for salaries, wages and fringe benefits of employees who spend more than 25 percent of their compensated time in any given month on FEA. Therefore, the Commission concluded that the Employee’s services must be paid exclusively from the Committee’s federal account within California’s FEA periods.

On December 1, 2010, new regulations took effect that revised the definition of voter registration activity to eliminate the “individualized means” requirement and to include activities that encourage or urge people to register to vote, as well as activities that assist them in registering to vote. See Explanation and Justification for Final Rules on the Definition of Federal Election Activity, 75 FR 55257 (Sept. 10, 2010). See also the October 2010 Record. In its advisory opinion, the Commission determined that its answer to the above question would not change under the revised definition of voter registration activity.

The Commission could not determine by the required four affirmative votes whether the Executive Director’s supervision of the Employee also constituted voter registration activity.

AO 2010-24: Date: November 22, 2010; length: 6 pages.