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                          HOUSE BILL 2664

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State of Washington      55th Legislature     1998 Regular Session

By Representative Smith; by request of Secretary of State

Read first time .  Referred to Committee on .

Updating voter registration maintenance procedures.

    AN ACT Relating to cancellation of voter registration; amending RCW 29.10.040; and adding a new section to chapter 29.10 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

    Sec. 1.  RCW 29.10.040 and 1994 c 57 s 36 are each amended to read as follows:

    A registered voter who changes his or her residence from one county to another county, shall be required to register anew.  ((Before registering anew,)) The voter shall sign an authorization to cancel his or her present registration.  ((The authorization shall be on a form prescribed by the secretary of state by rule.  The)) An authorization to cancel a voter's registration shall be forwarded promptly to the county auditor of the county in which the voter was previously registered.  The county auditor of the county where the previous registration was made shall cancel the registration of the voter if it appears that the signatures in the registration record and on the cancellation authorization form were made by the same person.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  A new section is added to chapter 29.10 RCW to read as follows:

    In addition to the case-by-case cancellation procedure required in RCW 29.10.040, the county auditor, in conjunction with the office of the secretary of state, shall enter into an annual list maintenance program designed to detect persons registered in more than one county.  This program must be applied uniformly throughout the county and must be nondiscriminatory in its application.  The program must be completed not later than thirty days before the date of a primary or general election.

    The office of the secretary of state shall cause to be created a list of registered voters with the same date of birth and similar names who appear on two or more county lists of registered voters.  The office of the secretary of state shall forward this list to each county auditor so that they may properly cancel the previous registration of voters who have subsequently registered in a different county.  The county auditor of the county where the previous registration was made shall cancel the registration of the voter if it appears that the signatures in the registration and the signature provided to the new county on the voter's new registration were made by the same person.  The office of the secretary of state shall adopt rules to facilitate this process.

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