Sex offenders’ homes barred from being election polling places

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Houses where registered sex-offenders live cannot be used on election day for polling places under a measure signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Assemblyman Stephen Knight (R-Palmdale) introduced the legislation after news reports that at least 19 polling places in the Bay Area were listed on the state’s Megan’s Law website as the residences of sex offenders.

A former LAPD officer, Knight recently won the Legislature’s approval of the measure, telling fellow lawmakers that the measure is necessary to protect high school students who volunteer at polling places and children who accompany their parents to the ballot box on election day.

‘With so many existing options for polling locations in California, we should not compromise public safety by allowing these sites to be located at the home of a registered sex offender,’ Knight said at the time.

There were about 15,000 polling places in California’s last presidential election, and about 10% of them were located in single-family homes. The new law requires county elections officials to check on the Megan’s Law website to make sure proposed polling places are not the residences of sex offenders.

-- Patrick McGreevy