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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 18, 2020 01:46 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Ryan P. Aument |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Ensuring Accuracy of Voter Registration Records |
| In the near future I will be introducing legislation that will incorporate into statute the recommendations made by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale in his 2019 audit report of the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE), which is the program the Department of State uses to maintain a complete list of all registered voters in the Commonwealth. In 2019, the Auditor General released his report which detailed 50 recommendations to the Department of State related to security protocols, information technology general controls, and interface controls to “improve the security of Pennsylvania’s voter registration system and the completeness, accuracy, and auditability” of the voter registration records. Though the audit was requested by the Department of State, the department refused to provide necessary information to the Auditor General in order to adequately perform the audit. For this reason, my bill will prohibit the Department of State, PennDOT, and counties from withholding information necessary to conduct a full and comprehensive audit. Incorporating these recommendations into law is necessary due to the reluctance of the Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar to accept the findings in the report. Indeed, the Auditor General feared that the Department of State would ignore their recommendations, writing “We are concerned that DOS, and therefore the counties, will not utilize the information provided to them in the audit because it is assuming that the data in the SURE system is accurate”. Further, my bill would require an audit of the SURE system be conducted by the Auditor General every four years, beginning on 2023, to ensure continued confidence in the voter registration lists being used for our elections. Please join me in this effort to ensure accurate voter registration lists. |
Introduced as SB1018