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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Fifth Legislature, Second Regular Session
AMENDED
early ballots; tracking system
Purpose
Requires counties with a population of more than 100,000 persons, 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 $700,000 in FY 2023 from the state General Fund (state GF) to the Secretary of State (SOS) for establishing a grant program for counties to establish an early ballot tracking system.
Background
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 $700,000 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 with a population of more than 100,000 persons and where the county uses 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 $700,000 in FY 2023 from the state GF to the SOS for establishing a grant program for counties to establish an early ballot tracking system.
3. Allows the SOS, between July 1, 2022, and December 31, 2023, to award grants of up to $100,000 per county to counties that do not have an early ballot tracking system available on the county's website as of the general effective date.
4. Exempts the appropriation from lapsing and reverts all unexpended and unencumbered monies on December 31, 2023, to the state GF.
5. Makes a conforming change.
6. Becomes effective on the general effective date, with a delayed effective date as noted.
Amendment Adopted by 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.
Senate Action
APPROP 2/15/22 DPA 10-0-0
Prepared by Senate Research
February 16, 2022
MH/HW/slp