2005 Minnesota Statutes

     206.805 State voting systems contracts. 

    Subdivision 1.    Contracts required.  (a) The secretary 
 of state, with the assistance of the commissioner of 
 administration, shall establish one or more state voting systems 
 contracts.  The contracts should, if practical, include 
 provisions for maintenance of the equipment purchased.  The 
 voting systems contracts must address precinct-based optical 
 scan voting equipment, ballot marking equipment for persons with 
 disabilities and other voters, and assistive voting machines 
 that combine voting methods used for persons with disabilities 
 with precinct-based optical scan voting machines.  The contracts 
 must give the state a perpetual license to use and modify the 
 software.  The contracts must include provisions to escrow the 
 software source code, as provided in subdivision 2.  Bids for 
 voting systems and related election services must be solicited 
 from each vendor selling or leasing voting systems that have 
 been certified for use by the secretary of state.  The contracts 
 must be renewed from time to time.  

    (b) The secretary of state shall appoint an advisory 
 committee, including representatives of the state chief 
 information officer, county auditors, municipal clerks who have 
 had operational experience with the use of electronic voting 
 systems, and members of the disabilities community to advise the 
 secretary of state in reviewing and evaluating the merits of 
 proposals submitted from voting equipment vendors for the state 
 contracts. 

    (c) Counties and municipalities may purchase or lease 
 voting systems and obtain related election services from the 
 state contracts. 

    Subd. 2.    Escrow of source code.  The contracts must 
 require the voting system vendor to provide a copy of the source 
 code for the voting system to an independent third-party 
 evaluator selected by the vendor, the secretary of state, and 
 the chairs of the major political parties.  The evaluator must 
 examine the source code and certify to the secretary of state 
 that the voting system will record and count votes as 
 represented by the vendor.  Source code that is trade secret 
 information must be treated as nonpublic information, in 
 accordance with section 13.37.  Each major political party may 
 designate an agent to examine the source code to verify that the 
 voting system will record and count votes as represented by the 
 vendor; the agent must not disclose the source code to anyone 
 else. 

    HIST: 2005 c 162 s 19