H-2357.1

HOUSE BILL 2206

ByRepresentatives Cheney, Low, Couture, and Hutchins

AN ACT Relating to establishing secure online access to the voter registration database; amending RCW 29A.08.125; and providing an effective date.

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

Sec. 1. RCW 29A.08.125 and 2023 c 466 s 5 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The office of the secretary of state shall maintain a statewide voter registration database. This database must be a centralized, uniform, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list that contains the name and registration information of every registered voter in the state.

(2) The statewide list is the official list of registered voters for the conduct of all elections.

(3) The statewide list must include, but is not limited to, the name, date of birth, residence address, signature, gender, and date of registration of every legally registered voter in the state.

(4) A unique identifier must be assigned to each registered voter in the state.

(5) The database must be coordinated with other government databases within the state including, but not limited to, the department of corrections, the department of licensing, the department of health, and county auditors. The database may also be coordinated with the databases of election officials in other states.

(6) Authorized employees of the secretary of state and each county auditor must have immediate electronic access to the information maintained in the database.

(7) Voter registration information received by each county auditor must be electronically entered into the database. The office of the secretary of state must provide support, as needed, to enable each county auditor to enter and maintain voter registration information in the state database.

(8) The secretary of state has data authority over all voter registration data.

(9) The voter registration database must be designed to accomplish at a minimum, the following:

(a) Comply with the help America vote act of 2002 (P.L. 107-252);

(b) Identify duplicate voter registrations;

(c) Identify suspected duplicate voters;

(d) Screen against any available databases maintained by other government agencies to identify voters who are ineligible to vote due to serving a sentence of total confinement as the result of a felony conviction, lack of citizenship, or a court finding of mental incompetence;

(e) Provide images of voters' signatures for the purpose of checking signatures on initiative and referendum petitions;

(f) Provide for a comparison between the voter registration database and the department of licensing change of address database;

(g) Provide access for county auditors that includes the capability to update registrations and search for duplicate registrations;

(h) Provide for the cancellation of registrations of voters who have moved out of state; ((and))

(i) Provide for the storage of pending registration records for all future voters who have not yet reached ((eighteen))18 years of age in a manner that these records will not appear on the official list of registered voters until the future registrant is no longer in pending status as defined under RCW 29A.08.615; and

(j) Provide secure online access to voters for printing replacement ballots and updating voter registration information. The secure online voter access must use an individual verification system for each voter to access their voter profile within the database. The individualized verification system must be secure, unique to each voter, not connected to the voter identification or any other information specific to that voter, and must enable a process through which the voter may remedy a forgotten or lost password, pin, or other verification method. The verification system is not subject to disclosure under chapter 42.56 RCW.

(10) The secretary of state may, upon agreement with other appropriate jurisdictions, screen against any available databases maintained by election officials in other states and databases maintained by federal agencies including, but not limited to, the federal bureau of investigation, the federal court system, the federal bureau of prisons, and the bureau of citizenship and immigration services.

(11) The database shall retain information regarding previous successful appeals of proposed cancellations of registrations in order to avoid repeated cancellations for the same reason.

(12) Each county auditor shall maintain a list of all registered voters within the county that are contained on the official statewide voter registration list. In addition to the information maintained in the statewide database, the county database must also maintain the applicable taxing district and precinct codes for each voter in the county, and a list of elections in which the individual voted.

(13) Each county auditor shall allow electronic access and information transfer between the county's voter registration system and the official statewide voter registration list.

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