What's happening
This bill allows any commissioner of a board of elections in New York to order a voting machine audit if discrepancies are found.
Why it matters
Empowers individual commissioners. By allowing any commissioner—not just a majority or the board collectively—to order an audit, the bill increases the ability of commissioners to act quickly if they notice potential problems, potentially leading to faster detection of errors or fraud.
Enhances election transparency and trust. By making it easier to trigger voting machine audits when discrepancies are found, the bill could help reassure the public and candidates that election results are accurate and that irregularities will be investigated.
Creates a check against mishandling or oversight. The change gives commissioners more autonomy, which can serve as a safeguard if there are disagreements or reluctance within the board to act on reported issues, thus ensuring concerns aren’t ignored due to partisan or procedural gridlock.
May increase frequency of audits and administrative workload. Since any commissioner can order an audit, there could be more frequent and potentially overlapping audits, which could impact resources and require boards to be better prepared for additional scrutiny.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Allow Election Audit Orders
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
History
- Referred to election law
- Referred to election law
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.
Allow Quick Voting Audits
In Senate Committee · Elections · Sponsor Zellnor Myrie
Full text
1 pageUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
8448
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
July 8, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. PAULIN, BLAKE, ABINANTI, GOTTFRIED, PICHARDO, REYES, RIVERA -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. BUCHWALD -- read once and referred to the Committee on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to empowering the commissioner of a board of elections to order a voting machine audit upon a finding of discrepancies
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Subdivision 3 of section 9-211 of the election law, as amended by chapter 515 of the laws of 2015, is amended to read as follows:
3. The state board of elections shall, in accordance with subdivision four of section 3-100 of this chapter, promulgate regulations establishing a uniform statewide standard to be used by boards of elections to determine when a discrepancy between the audit tallies and the voting machine or system tallies shall require a further voter verifiable record audit of additional voting machines or systems or a complete audit of all machines or systems within the jurisdiction of a board of elections. Any commissioner of a board of elections shall be empowered to order that any such audit shall be conducted whenever any such discrepancy exists.
§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD13204-02-9
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.