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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Fifth Legislature, Second Regular Session
AMENDED
early ballots; tracking system
Purpose
Requires all counties, effective January 1, 2024, to provide an early ballot tracking system and provide voters with access to the system on the county's website. Appropriates $250,000 in FY 2023 from the state General Fund (state GF) to the Secretary of State (SOS) for enhancements to the Arizona voter information database (AVID) to provide for early ballot tracking.
Background
AVID is the statewide voter registration and election management system used by the 13 counties other than Maricopa County and Pima County. The Maricopa County and Pima County systems must link to AVID through an interface. All voter registration information is stored in AVID and the system is used to automatically check new voter registration against Arizona's Motor Vehicle Department records to secure proof of citizenship (E.P.M Ch.1 (IV)(A)).
County recorders or other officers in charge of elections, on receipt of an envelope containing an early ballot and ballot affidavit, must verify the signature and attempt to cure the ballot in the case of mismatching signatures. After signature verification, the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections must safely keep the ballots until it's time for the ballots to be tallied (A.R.S. § 16-550). Maricopa and Pima Counties currently provide an early ballot tracking system on their website where voters from those counties may check the date the ballot was mailed, the date the ballot was returned and received by the county recorder and whether the ballot was accepted and signature verified (SOS).
S.B. 1411 appropriates $250,000 from the state GF in FY 2023 to the SOS.
Provisions
1. Requires, effective January 1, 2024, a county recorder or other officer in charge of elections in counties that use early ballots to provide:
a) an early ballot tracking system that indicates whether the voter's early ballot has been received, verified, sent to be tabulated or rejected; and
b) voters with access to the early ballot tracking system on the county's website.
2. Appropriates $250,000 in FY 2023 from the state GF to the SOS for enhancements to AVID to provide for early ballot tracking.
3. Makes a conforming change.
4. Becomes effective on the general effective date, with a delayed effective date as noted.
Amendment Adopted by Appropriations Committee
· Requires the ballot tracking system to indicate whether the voter's early ballot has been sent to be tabulated or rejected, rather than whether the ballot was tabulated.
Amendments Adopted by Committee of the Whole
1. Appropriates $250,000 from the state GF in FY 2023 to the SOS for enhancements to the AVID to provide for early ballot tracking, rather than appropriating $700,000 to the SOS to establish a grant program for counties to establish an early ballot tracking system.
2. Requires a county recorder or other officer in charge of elections in all counties, rather than only counties with a population of more than 100,000 persons, to provide an early ballot tracking system.
3. Makes technical and conforming changes.
Senate Action
GOV 2/7/22 DP 5-2-0
APPROPS 2/15/22 DPA 10-0-0
Prepared by Senate Research
March 7, 2022
MH/HW/slp