Relating to voter records created and retained by the state commissioner of elections and county commissioners of elections

This bill relates to records created and retained by the state commissioner of elections and county commissioners of elections.39 (use of registration information) and requires the state registrar of voters to immediately prepare a list of registered voters upon the satisfaction of those requirements. The bill defines “bona fide political research”, which is a permissible use of information obtained from voter registration records under current law, to include work by an individual to research and help maintain the voter registration database. The bill requires the state commissioner of elections to create a record containing all information in the statewide voter registration database at the time of an election for each voter who voted in that election, which must be organized by county. The state commissioner of elections shall maintain the record for eight years. A person may request an electronic copy of the record at no cost. The bill also requires each county commissioner of elections of a county with a population of at least 100,000 to create a log of each ballot cast at each primary and general election in the form of a text, comma, or tab delimited file. The log must include, to the extent possible, each ballot’s sequential identification number, timestamp, method of voting, selection of candidates, batch identification number, and tabulator identification number. The log shall not include any personally identifiable information for a voter. For a county with a population of less than 100,000, the bill requires the county commissioner of elections to maintain a similar ballot log, but only for absentee ballots. The bill requires the data in the log to be made available on a per precinct basis if possible. A person may request an electronic copy of a log at no cost, and a log shall be maintained for eight years following the election for which the log was created.