SB1064

THE CONTEXT: The Secretary of State is required to appoint a three-member committee consisting of an engineer, a member of the Arizona's State Bar and a person familiar with voting processes in the state. This committee investigates and tests vote recording and tabulation machines.

WHAT THE BILL DID: The final vetoed version would establish the following minimum standards for vote recording and tabulating machines and devices: a) operating systems and software must be configured to the appropriate level of security consistent with best practices in standards issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; b) no hardware installed that supports internet connectivity or any other form of remote access or software that allows any change to results in files or a database; c) allow for the usage and tracking of voters based on unique credentials that are changed at least once per election cycle; d) election software logs are maintained and deletions of ballot images, windows event logs and results files are properly logged and tracked; and e) specified data from the previous provisions must be maintained for 22 months as election data, prohibit voting and tabulation equipment used in a polling place, voting center, tabulation center or central counting center from having internet access, and specifies voting and tabulation equipment must prohibit access, by any means, to any data or results.

WHY IT MATTERED: The practical reason for this bill was to create an operative state process for voting instead of leaving implementation undefined. It would establish the following minimum standards for vote recording and tabulating machines and devices: a) operating systems and software must be configured to the appropriate level of security consistent with best practices in standards issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; b) no hardware installed that supports internet connectivity or any other form of remote access or software that allows any change to results in files or a database; c) allow for the usage and tracking of voters based on unique credentials that are changed at least once per election cycle; d) election software logs are maintained and deletions of ballot images, windows event logs and results files are properly logged and tracked; and e) specified data from the previous provisions must be maintained for 22 months as election data, and would also prohibit voting and tabulation equipment used in a polling place, voting center, tabulation center or central counting center from having internet access, rather than leave the current rule unchanged.