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Committee advances bill to add prior‑residence field to voter registration cards
Summary
SB 14‑51 would add a space on voter‑registration cards to record a registrant's previous county or state to improve interjurisdictional notices; the secretary of state reviewed the PCS and the committee approved the bill after questions about ERIC and a $25,000 printing cost.
Representative Roberts presented SB 14‑51, a notification bill intended to improve communication between counties and the state board of elections by adding a field to voter‑registration cards indicating where the registrant lived previously.
Roberts said the secretary of state reviewed the policy changes and was comfortable with the PCS version of the bill. She described the change as codifying current practice: "It's basically something we're already doing. It's just that we're kind of codifying it now. Putting in statute."
Committee members asked whether the change could delay a voter's ability to vote (for example, military families moving from another state) and whether the state still uses ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) to check registrations. Roberts said the added field is informational and that the state is no longer participating in ERIC; the committee discussed that the state election board plans to absorb an estimated $25,000 printing cost from existing budgetary resources.
Members sought clarity about how a "definitive match" or a defective match would be reported and whether name variants (for example, "Andy" vs. "Andrew") would lead to cancellations; Roberts said existing matching processes would be respected and that the change is intended to generate an annual report when cancellations occur for defective matches. After discussion the committee voted to advance the bill (14 aye, 3 nay).
