Yesterday the GAE Committee is hearing testimony on another raft if bills. I spoke on four pieces of testimony on five bills. What brings them together is that they are all but ridiculous and unworkable given existing tried and true election law.
I was not going to testify orally on H.B.7392 as I thought it was so outrageous that everyone would testify against it. Apparently not. Many believe it was just like last year’s bills. It is much worse. In his testimony, Michael Brandi from the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) saw the same problems I saw – it precludes anyone but the Secretary of the State, Registrars and political operatives from seeing voter registration records, not even the SEEC or polling place officials, let alone voter integrity groups. Not surprisingly the media is getting it wrong too (E.g.), since most of the testimony has yet to be posted by the Committee.
The bills, and links to my testimony, The first four are the ones I covered orally in my three minutes. (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than by date)
H.B.6063 A well-intended bill that would be a disaster for tracing absentee ballots and voting integrity.
S.B.268 and H.B. 6048 Inconsistent with EDR Law and A Wasteful Unfunded Mandate aimed at solving the mythical all but non-existent problem of votER fraud. Would all but kill EDR.
H.B.7160 Well-intended, but would provide for volunteer student election officials as young as 13. Would they actually be held to account for following the law? On the other hand, includes the best EDR provisions yet!
H.B.7392 At best a poor public policy idea undermining confidence in our elections and democracy.
S.J.14 Yet another constitutional amendment for absentee voting.
