PURGING OF PERMANENT REGISTRATION RECORDS Present law requires the registration of a person to be purged at the request of the voter; 90 days after a change of name for any reason, except by marriage or divorce; if the voter dies; upon receiving information that a person has been convicted of an infamous crime under law from the state coordinator of elections, the district attorney general, United States attorney, clerk of the court that entered the conviction, or other source upon verification by the clerk of the convicting court; or upon written confirmation from the voter that the voter has changed the voter's address to an address outside the county of registration or has registered to vote in another jurisdiction. Present law requires the election commission to, not less than 90 days before the regular August election, purge the permanent registration records of those persons whose registration is required to be purged as described above. This bill changes the requirement from not less then 90 days before the regular August election to not less than 50 days before the regular August election. HAND-MARKED PAPER BALLOTS This bill provides that, for the 2024 election cycle and cycles thereafter, a county election commission may elect to use secure, serialized, currency grade, hand-marked paper ballots as the primary method of voting. This bill provides that each county election commission may use hand-marked paper ballots as the primary method of recording the vote used for certification; and use a hand count of paper ballots as the primary method of tabulating votes. This bill requires the state coordinator of elections, prior to the 2024 election cycle, to do the following: (1) Procure a currency grade hand-marked paper ballot vendor that produces ballots containing a unique voter identifier or control number that allows or chain of custody accountability to be made available to county election commissions for use in all elections; (2) Ensure that paper ballots are uniform in form, fit, and function without distinguishing characteristics; (3) Inform county election commissioners that such a paper ballot is available for elections conducted in 2024 and after; and (4) Establish a process for county election commissions to place each ballot in a secure box or bin for hand-marked paper ballots to be retained until a hand count is performed after the polls close; provided, that such box or bin must comply with the requirements of law. This bill requires that those counties electing to use hand-marked paper ballots and hand counting of ballots beginning with the 2024 election cycle and all elections after must adhere to the following steps for counting ballots: (1) After the polling place has been closed, the judges must open the ballot box containing the hand-marked paper ballots in the polling place in the presence of the watchers and all other persons who are present; (2) The judges must alternate in drawing ballots and reading aloud within sight of the other judges the names of the persons who have been voted for on each ballot, and the two precinct registrars must record the votes at the same time for counting on record sheets. The completed record sheets must be bound in the poll books; (3) Two judges of different political parties must then compute the votes for each candidate and each position on a question and enter the totals for the paper ballots on the duplicate tally sheets in ink. The third judge must verify the computation and entry of the totals; and (4) The tally sheets for the hand count must be certified correct and signed by each judge and by the officer of elections and placed in the poll books.

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 40-11-132