SB 2564

Present law establishes a pilot project to determine whether convenient voting centers could successfully be established for local and state elections to make it convenient for voters to vote at centralized voting areas on election day in the county in which the voter is registered. This bill deletes the pilot project. Present law establishes an early voting period when eligible registered voters may vote before an election and authorizes a county election commission to establish a satellite voting location for early voting within a municipality, upon request. This bi ll requires early voting satellite locations to (i) be placed in geographic locations not more than four precincts; (ii) be evenly distributed throughout the county to ensure that the precincts are readily accessible ; (iii) utilize a secure, serialized, wat ermarked, hand-marked paper ballot ; (iv) maintain a separate check-in process for voters to obtain a ballot by precinct; and (v) ensure that all ballots are secured and placed in an optical scanner by individual precinct only and that ballots are segregated by precinct and are not co-mingled with ballots from other precincts. This bill requires voting at a satellite location to cease at the end of the early voting period and clarifies that a voter must only vote in the precinct where the voter resides on e lection day. RULEMAKING This bill authorizes the coordinator of elections to promulgate rules to effectuate this bill. Such rules must include a requirement for the use of precinct-based optical scanners or the use of secure ballot boxes for each precinct ; a requirement to utilize secure, serialized, watermarked, hand-marked paper ballots and the provision for the correct ballot type representing the satellite precinct ; and the procedures for the process at the end of early voting to return the optical scanners or secure ballot boxes, or both, which are to remain in the county election commission office until such time as tabulation commences on election day.