2E Relating to elections; requiring secretary of state consultation with local election officials in developing the statewide voter registration system; defining or redefining certain terms for electronic voting systems regulation purposes; requiring the secretary of state to examine electronic ballot marking and assistive technologies intended to be used with the system; delaying the deadline for the use of voting systems for disabled voters in county, municipal and school district elections; specifying certain candidate order requirements for electronic ballots; expanding certain electronic voting system requirements; requiring the secretary of state in cooperation with the commissioner of administration to establish state voting systems contracts, specifying certain contract requirements and requiring secretary of state appointment of an advisory committee to assist the commissioner of administration in reviewing and evaluating the merits of proposals submitted from voting equipment vendors for the contracts, authorizing counties and municipalities to purchase or lease voting systems and services from the contracts; requiring the contracts to require voting system vendors to provide copies of source codes for the voting systems to independent third party evaluators for examination and certification purposes, protecting trade secret information; providing for secretary of state certification in lieu of approval of electronic voting systems for experimental use and for use of electronic ballot markers and audio ballot readers, modifying certain requirements for testing the voting systems and certain provisions regulating optical scan voting systems; appropriating money from the help America vote act (HAVA) account to the secretary of state for grants to counties to purchase certain electronic voting systems and optical scan voting equipment and to defray the operating costs of assistive voting equipment and for grants to counties and municipalities to improve access to polling places for individuals with disabilities and to the commissioner of administration and the secretary of state to establish the state voting systems contract; requiring county auditors to convene working groups of city and town election officials to create local equipment plans, specifying certain plan requirements and imposing a completion deadline; requiring counties receiving grants to report to the secretary of state by a certain date the amount spent for purchase of electronic voting systems and for operating costs
(mk, ja)