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Bill would let local officials post mail‑ballot plans online instead of filing with Secretary of State
Summary
Representative Lisa Teal told the Senate State Administration Committee House Bill 527 would require local election administrators to post written mail‑ballot plans on their own websites rather than submitting them to the Secretary of State.
Representative Lisa Teal, sponsor of House Bill 527, told the Senate State Administration Committee the bill would require local election administrators to post the written plan for any election conducted by mail on the administrator’s website — rather than filing that plan with the Secretary of State.
The bill, Teal said, was brought with support from the Secretary of State’s office and includes language allowing school districts without websites to post plans on social media or another public venue. "Some years, the secretary receives around 500 plans and filing with the secretary is unnecessary," Teal said at the hearing.
Why it matters: Austin James, who testified for the Secretary of State, described the current workload at the SOS office as concentrated in a single staff position that reviews several hundred plans a year. "Right now, what happens is we've got 1 FTE that gets somewhere around 700 mail ballot plans. And they look through the information. I said, well, how often are they wrong? They said, well, about 50% of the time," James said, explaining that the most common errors were incorrect dates — often last year’s dates — which the office then updates.
Supporters said the change is a cleanup of redundant process. James and other proponents said local officials already prepare the substantive plan and that posting locally would make the information more readily available to voters. The bill was amended in the House to allow school districts to post plans on the school website and to give districts without websites flexibility in how they make the plan public.
During questioning, Senator Vance asked what would happen if a mail‑ballot plan were not posted at least 60 days before an election. James replied that under the bill the plan would default to a polling‑place election, and he said the Secretary of State’s office plans to publish a template and an auto‑calculation tool to help local administrators publish the required information correctly.
Committee action: The committee heard proponents, informational witnesses and no opponents in the room. Representative Teal closed by asking the committee to "do concur." The hearing was closed without a committee vote at that time.
The bill remains before the committee for further action.
