Z-0650.1  _______________________________________________

                          HOUSE BILL 1950

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Representatives McMorris, Miloscia and Romero; by request of Secretary of State

Read first time 02/11/1999.  Referred to Committee on State Government.

Facilitating electronic transfer of voter registration information.

    AN ACT Relating to electronic transfer of voter registration information; and adding a new section to chapter 29.10 RCW.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 29.10 RCW to read as follows:

    The secretary of state shall create a standard electronic file format (state transfer format) to be used for the transfer of voter registration information between county elections departments and the office of the secretary of state.  The format must be prescribed by rule and contain at least the following information:  Voter name, address, date of birth, date of registration, mailing address, legislative and congressional district, and digitized signature image.  Each county shall program its voter registration system to convert this data from the county's storage format into the state transfer format.  Every county shall complete this work by January 1, 2000.  Each county may bill reasonable programming costs incurred by it to the office of the secretary of state by June 1, 2000.

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