(Bloomberg Government) -- California election workers would be able to block their addresses from public view under a proposed expansion of a program set up to protect abortion providers from harassment and intimidation.

The state Senate on Wednesday voted 30-3 to pass the measure (S.B. 1131), which is now ready for consideration by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). The Assembly had passed it on a vote of 62-0.

“As the midterm elections quickly approach, this legislation is urgently needed to protect the Californians who do the largely thankless but very essential work of ensuring that our elections are free, fair, and effectively administered,” Sen. Josh Newman (D), the bill’s author, said in a statement. If the measure becomes law, election workers and other public employees who face threats of violence could immediately sign up for a two-year enrollment in the Safe at Home program, with the option to re-enroll. The program redirects participants’ mail to a post-office box so that their residential addresses don’t appear in public records requests.

Election workers also could enroll in a county-level program to remove their home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses from the voter rolls.

The Safe at Home Program was formed in 1999 for survivors of domestic violence, and has been expanded to include stalking and trafficking victims, health care providers, and public health officials.

The bill is backed by the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, which published a report last year detailing a wave of threats against election workers after the 2020 general election. One in three election officials surveyed in the report said they felt unsafe doing their job, and one in six said they had been threatened. Close to one-third said they knew someone who quit their election job due to safety concerns.

The Legislature also has sent to Newsom bills that would:

• Extend to Jan. 1, 2027 the end date for a law that prohibits election “deepfakes"— digitally manipulated audio or visual media intended to damage a candidate’s reputation (A.B. 972);

• Require California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission to count incarcerated individuals as living at their last known place of residence, not the correctional facility (A.B. 1848);

• Update campaign transparency requirements to make television and digital advertising disclosure statements more visible (S.B. 1360);

• Change local recall election protocols (A.B. 2582; A.B. 2584); and

• Prohibit automatically recurring campaign contributions unless a donor consents to it (A.B. 775).

Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bills.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tiffany Stecker in Sacramento, Calif. at tstecker@bgov.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katherine Rizzo at krizzo@bgov.com

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