The bill requires all general, primary, odd-year, recall, and congressional vacancy elections to be conducted as mail ballot elections. A mail ballot election is an election for which eligible electors receive a ballot by mail and may cast the ballot by mail or may surrender the mail ballot at a service center and cast a ballot in person. Small counties may opt-out of conducting a mail ballot election upon demonstrating to the secretary of state that the mail ballot election would have higher costs to the county than a traditional polling place election.

For general and primary elections, the number of service centers in a county will be at least equal to the number of motor vehicle offices in the county. Service centers will be open during the 8 days prior to election day and on election day; except that service centers will not be required to be open on Sundays. At a service center, an elector may return a voted mail ballot or surrender a mail ballot and cast a vote in person in a voting booth at the service center. For primary elections, an elector may also declare party affiliation and cast a vote in the primary election. For any election that is not a primary or general election, the office of the county clerk and recorder will serve as the service center. In addition to service centers for general and primary elections, counties will be required to maintain at least one drop-off location for each 30,000 registered electors in the county. An elector may return a voted mail ballot at a drop-off location. Drop-off locations will be available to accept mail ballots during the 8 days prior to election day and on election day; except that they will not be required to accept ballots on Sundays or the first Saturday of such a period.

Mail ballots will be mailed between 22 and 18 days before the election to each active registered elector and each registered elector whose registration record has been marked "Inactive - failed to vote"; except that, for primary elections, ballots will only be mailed to affiliated electors. Electors may return the voted mail ballot by mail or deposit the voted mail ballot at a service center or drop-off location. Additionally, a voter may deliver a voted mail ballot to a person of the elector's choosing for deposit at a service center or drop-off location. Finally, an elector may surrender a mail ballot at a service center and cast a vote in person in a voting booth at the service center. All mail ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on election day. The bill repeals and relocates several provisions and also makes several conforming amendments to the "Uniform Election Code of 1992".

Year

2011

Current status

  • 1/21/2011 - Introduced in House: Assigned to State, Veteran & Militairy Affairs

Sponsors

Murray

Bill number

HB11-1131