Today we highlight two bills important to election administration that we hope will be passed. As is often the case, nothing is perfect, yet sometimes testimony improves an inadequate bill, based on a good concept. Sometimes we support a bill that falls short, that none the less would be an improvement.
Authority of the Secretary of the State
This bill is basically a good idea that we can support – providing enforceability of “any declaratory ruling, instruction or opinion issued by the Secretary of the State. It also requires that towns provide email for every Registrar. While we like the intent of the bill it should be improved before passage. <written testimony> As I said in my prepared testimony:
I support H.B. 5480, yet would like to see two improvements to better serve the public. First, that the Secretary of the State’s instructions etc. be required to be posted to the Secretary’s web site in a timely manner. Second, that registrars provide an email address on their web site and/or the Secretary of the State’s web for communication with voters. This would be especially useful to military and overseas voters.
Electronic Check-In
This bill allows for electronic check-in of voters. Once again this is a concept that we support, yet testified against the original which had many problems that went well beyond electronic check-in <testimony>
We are pleased to report that our objections have been addressed in a substitute bill approved by the Committee. So, we can fully support it going forward.
