BILL #    HB 2206	TITLE: multistate voter registration system; prohibition
SPONSOR:    Taylor	STATUS: House Engrossed
PREPARED BY:    Micaela Andrews

Description

The bill would make changes to the maintenance of county voter registration lists and specify the circumstances under which Arizona may be a member of a multistate voter registration or voter registration list maintenance organization.

Estimated Impact

We estimate that this bill's changes to the administration of the state voter registration maintenance may have an impact on county and Secretary of State expenses, but we cannot determine a potential impact without input from the Secretary of State or the counties. We have requested the Secretary of State and the Arizona Association of Counties provide an estimated impact of this legislation and have not yet received a response

To the extent that the bill changes county and Secretary of State (SOS) processes for maintaining voter registration lists relative to current law, the bill may increase Secretary of State costs or individual county costs. These potential costs would relate to new responsibilities or additional costs to modify the state's voter registration database (named "AVID" for Access Voter Information Database), or for increased workload and/or additional mailings to implement the new requirements.

Analysis

The bill would add a new suspension and notification process if the SOS or County Recorder receive information from a government entity that a voter is not eligible – this includes, but is not limited to, notifications that the voter is under the age of 18, has a conflicting address or is not a US citizen. We anticipate additional state costs to update AVID and county costs to account for the suspension and notification processes. Any additional costs would depend on the number of ineligible voters and cannot be determined in advance.

The bill would require a specified voter registration list maintenance program by counties, and require the SOS to perform the maintenance if a County Recorder does not implement the program. This requirement has the potential to increase county and SOS costs, and the magnitude of costs would depend on the application of the requirement, as the bill conditions these provisions on whether a county conducts the prescribed voter registration maintenance processes.

The bill would set requirements for the state's membership in a nongovernmental voter registration list maintenance organization. The Secretary of State currently receives information from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to support the state's voter registration system maintenance. Current law and SOS rules outline how counties use data received from ERIC.  If the SOS were to determine that this law prevented Arizona from membership in ERIC, the bill would prohibit the current SOS expenditures of $76,200 for annual ERIC membership costs. However, this amount of savings is likely to be re-directed towards managing separate agreements with individual states to receive data, or to implement other improvements for the cross-checking of data with new sources.

4/14/25