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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR:	Blanton		DATE TYPED:	02/07/00		HB	105
SHORT TITLE:		Election Procedures				SB
					ANALYST:		Woodlee

APPROPRIATION

Appropriation Contained		Estimated Additional Impact		Recurring or Non-Rec	Fund Affected
FY00	FY01	FY00	FY01	Recurring or Non-Rec	Fund Affected
		NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates/Conflicts with/Companion to/Relates to

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Administrative Office of the Courts

Attorney General

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 105 amends provisions of the Election Code, primarily relating to the duties of the Secretary of State and the county clerks.

Significant Issues

The bill proposes to make the following changes in the Election Code:

•Directs the Secretary of State to provide a precinct manual to precinct boards and county clerks to be used for training;
•Allows the county clerk to increase size of absent voter precinct board;
•Requires a challenger appointed in each precinct to be a voter of that precinct;
•Requires county clerks to publicize in advance of an election that it is the voters' responsibility to update his/her voter registration data;
•Directs county clerks to ensure that multiple absentee ballot requests are not processed for the same voter and to hire temporary staff to process absentee ballot applications within 24 hours;
•Describes procedures for challenging ballot errors not discovered until after voting has begun;
•Allows county clerks to post election proclamation on government websites;
•Describes procedures for contesting an election based on ballot error or election official omission; and
•Describes options for a court having found a ballot error or election official omission.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

There is no appropriation or fiscal impact associated with this bill.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

The Office of the Attorney General pointed out the following grammatical/technical errors:

In Section 3 (page 5, line 2), the term "party" should be replaced with "political party," and

in Section 11 (page 15, line 3), the word "were" should be replaced with the singular "was."

MW/prr