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Sponsors
Senator · Senate District 38
History
- Referred to elections
- Referred to elections
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Provides that the board of elections shall accept voter registrations electronically through its website
In Assembly Committee · Election Law · Sponsor Brian Kavanagh
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
BILL NUMBER:S1991
Title of bill
An act to amend the election law, in relation to authorizing electronic voter registration
Purpose or general idea of bill
Provides that the Board of Elections shall accept voter registrations electronically through its website in order to improve poll book accuracy and remove the voter registration backlogs that appeared prior to the 2008 General Election.
Summary of specific provisions
Section 1 adds § 5-209 to the Election Law and requires the State Board of Elections to implement online voter registration using similar provision to the voter registration card. Registrants who provide a DMV client identification number would have their signature transferred from the DMV. Registrants providing only a social security number would need to show identification when voting for the first since they would be unable to meet New York State's signature requirements.
Justification
In the first two weeks of October in 2008 the New York City Board of Elections was crushed under nearly 204,000 voter registration forms which it had significantly difficulty processing. This brought the 2006 total for voter registrations received by the New York City Board of Election to nearly 715,000, as compared with 253,000 in all of 2007. Local Boards of Elections throughout the State reported similar unprecedented volume.
Local Boards of Elections struggled to get thousands of voter registration records entered in time for the General Election. However, many voters still reported that their names were not in poll books. Many of these voters fell victim to data entry errors, where a simple misspelling in an often ethnic name, made it nearly impossible to locate their name in the poll book and vote on a machine.
This legislation would use online voter registration to improve poll book accuracy and cure recent backlogs at local Boards of Election across the State
Prior legislative history
2011-12 - S.5237 - Referred to Elections
Fiscal implications
Projected cost savings in data entry costs for local Boards of Elections.
Effective date
This act shall take effect immediately on the 180th day after becoming a law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.