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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Fifth Legislature, Second Regular Session
election workers; unique passwords
Purpose
Requires an employee, volunteer or contractor that is required to log in to any election system to have a unique password that is changed every two weeks. Classifies, as a class 2 misdemeanor, violating requirements relating to unique passwords.
Background
All components of a voting system must be certified by the Secretary of State prior to use in any election for federal, state or county office (A.R.S. § 16-442). A voting system is the total combination of mechanical, electromechanical or electronic equipment that is used to define ballots, cast and count votes, report or display election results and maintain and produce any audit trail information, which includes electronic voting equipment and an electronic management system used to tabulate ballots (52 U.S.C. § 21081; EPM Ch. 4 (1)).
Electronic voting system software must be password protected. Any passwords used for voting system software must: 1) contain mixed-case and non-alphabetic characters; 2) be changed on a regular basis; 3) be known only by authorized users; and 4) not be a vender-supplied password (EPM Ch. 4 (III)(B)).
There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.
Provisions
1. Requires, for any election system or activity that requires an employee, contractor or volunteer to log in to the system, each employee, contractor or volunteer to have a unique password that is changed every two weeks.
2. Prohibits a unique password from being disclosed to any other person.
3. Classifies, as a class 2 misdemeanor, violating requirements relating to unique passwords.
4. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
Prepared by Senate Research
February 2, 2022
MH/slp