SJ 36

Abstract

Study; Secretary of Administration;State Board of Elections; electronic return of voted military-overseasballots; pilot program; report. Requests the Secretary of Administrationto oversee and develop a charter and directives for the State Boardof Elections to form a working group to study implementation of electronicreturn of voted military-overseas ballots. In conducting its study, the State Board of Elections with the working group shall study anddevelop initial instructions and procedures that (i) consider issuesrelated to accessibility, auditability, authentication, verification,and security through encryption, in order to ensure that any processimplemented would guarantee the accuracy and integrity of voted military-overseasballots, and (ii) recommend (a) security measures necessary to reasonablysecure the transmission, processing, and storage of voter data frominterception and unauthorized access; (b) methods for verifying andauthenticating the identity of the voter electronically when registeringto vote and when requesting a ballot from and returning a ballotto the voter's jurisdiction; (c) methods for the encryption of votedballots; and (d) a procedure for security reviews after an election.The study shall focus on implementation of electronic return of votedmilitary-overseas ballots first as a limited pilot program in 2021,and later on a statewide basis.