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Committee advances bill to let voters track absentee ballots and get confidential email alerts
Summary
The Senate Government Organization Committee reported a committee substitute for Senate Bill 802 that would require the Secretary of State to publish status events for absentee ballots and allow voters to opt in to confidential email notifications; the measure was referred under its original double committee reference to Judiciary.
The Senate Government Organization Committee voted to report a committee substitute for Senate Bill 802 that would require the Secretary of State to maintain a public online tracker of absentee-ballot events and let voters opt in to confidential email alerts.
Committee Counsel told members, “This bill creates a new section of code that concerns tracking and providing notifications of the status of absentee ballots.” The substitute would require the Secretary of State to publish when an absentee ballot application was received and accepted or denied (with a brief reason and instructions to cure), and to list the dates a ballot was mailed, received by the county clerk, accepted or rejected (with reasons and cure instructions). If a ballot is later cured and accepted, the system must show that the ballot is eligible to be tabulated.
The nut graf: Sponsors and election officials said the measure aims to increase transparency around absentee ballots and give voters a chance to correct problems so their ballots can be counted.
County clerks and the Secretary of State’s office told the committee most of the required tracking already appears on the Secretary of State’s website. Michelle Holly, Fayette County Clerk, testified the proposal largely formalizes current practice and would make it easier for voters to confirm whether a returned ballot was received and accepted. Deke Kersey, chief of staff at the Secretary of State’s office, said the change would require modest programming work and adding two columns to the existing online listing (one for a reason for rejection and one for cure instructions). He noted the voter registration system currently outputs event files that feed the website and a planned voter-registration-system replacement under procurement could incorporate the new fields during development.
The bill allows voters to opt to receive email notifications when each listed event occurs. The committee substitute removed an earlier option for text-message notifications; Counsel said that feature had been taken out because it could be problematic. Counsel also said the bill makes those email notifications confidential and exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
Committee action and next steps: The vice chair moved that the committee substitute for Senate Bill 802 be reported to the full Senate with a recommendation that it pass and, under the original double reference, first be referred to the Judiciary Committee. The motion carried; the committee substitute will be reported to the full Senate and will proceed to Judiciary under the bill’s double-reference rule.
Ending: The committee took no further amendments on the floor and closed discussion after receiving testimony from county and Secretary of State staff. The substitute as reported will next appear before the Judiciary Committee under the double-reference requirement.
