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House advances election-code recodification and approves two election bills
Summary
Lawmakers advanced a lengthy recodification of the election code (phase 2) and approved two technical election bills, with sponsor Representative Afton B. Bradshaw saying the changes are organizational and primarily technical; the transcript records House Bill 88 passing 71-0 and House Bill 84 passing with a tally that is not clearly recorded in the transcript.
The House took up election-code recodification and technical amendments on its third-reading calendar, with sponsor Representative Afton B. Bradshaw describing the measures as reorganizational and non-substantive corrections intended to streamline the code.
Bradshaw told members that chapters 7, 8 and 9 of the election code were reviewed over the interim by a working group that included political party leaders, county recorders and clerks, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. He described House Bill 84 as an extensive recodification and said it was not included in the packet because of its length; he characterized it as reorganizing and making "technical corrections" and said "trust me, there are no substantive changes." Bradshaw said passage was necessary to allow other pending bills in that section to be drafted.
House Bill 88, described as technical election-law amendments by Bradshaw, was presented alongside the recodification work; Bradshaw said the changes were mostly noncontroversial and that a larger revision bill remained to be drafted. The presiding officer announced House Bill 88 received 71 affirmative and 0 negative votes and passed the body; it will be referred to the Senate as recorded in the transcript.
The transcript records that House Bill 84 also passed and was referred to the Senate, but the vote tally in the recording appears garbled in the transcript and is not clearly specified (the reading records "6 state affirmative and 1 negative," which likely reflects a transcription error). The sponsor characterized the recodification as technical and reorganizational; no substantive policy changes were described on the floor in the provided record.
No floor amendments or roll-call debate over substantive policy items related to the election code were recorded in the provided transcript. Bradshaw said a third bill with more substantive revisions remained to be drafted and would generate further discussion once available.
