SB 209 – Election Law

The House passed SB 209 on a party line vote. It is an election law bill where the House added a whole bunch of stuff to the bill the Senate initially sent over.

Among other things, it requires a precinct election officer to tell a voter why his or her vote is being treated as a provisional ballot and requires the voter to be informed of the steps necessary to make that ballot official. It further requires the circuit court clerk to, within three days, tell the voter why the ballot is being treated as provisional, what needs to be done to make it official, the deadline for doing so, and provide contact information to the voter. Additionally, the county election board would be required to provide a list of the names and addresses of provisional voters to party chairmen and/or candidates whose name were on the ballot.

I know the right to vote is frequently described with dramatic, reverent sort of adjectives. But I suspect the General Assembly will lose its appetite for ensuring that right if it requires this much bureaucracy.