H. B. 2387
(By Delegates Jenkins, Johnson,
Leach, Hubbard and Underwood)
[Introduced March 4, 1997; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact section two, article four-a, chapter
three of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to electronic
voting systems and permitting the recording of ballots on a
computer disc.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section two, article four-a, chapter three of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 4A. ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEMS.
§3-4A-2. Definitions.
As used in this article, unless otherwise specified:
(a) "Automatic tabulating equipment" means all apparatus
necessary to electronically count votes recorded on ballots and
tabulate the results;
(b) "Ballot" means a tabulating card or paper on which votes
may be recorded by means of perforating or marking with
electronically sensible ink or pencil;
(c) "Ballot labels" means the cards, papers, booklet, pages
or other material showing the names of offices and candidates and
the statements of measures to be voted on, which are placed on
the vote recording device used for recording votes by means of
perforating;
(d) "Central counting center" means a facility equipped with
suitable and necessary automatic tabulating equipment, selected
by the county commission, for the electronic counting of votes
recorded on ballots;
(e) "Electronic voting system" is a means of conducting an
election whereby votes are recorded on ballots by means of an
electronically sensible marking ink
or , by perforating
or are
recorded on equipment that registers votes on a computer disc,
and
such votes are subsequently counted by automatic tabulating
equipment at the central counting center;
(f) "Program deck" means the actual punch card deck or
decks, or a computer program disk, diskette, tape or other
programming media, containing the program for counting and
tabulating the votes, including the "application program deck";
(g) "Application program deck" means the punch card deck or equivalent capacity in other program medias as provided,
containing specific options used and necessary to modify the
program of general application, to conduct and tabulate a
specific election according to applicable law;
(h) "Standard validation test deck" means a group of ballots
wherein all voting possibilities which can occur in an election
are represented; and
(i) "Vote recording device" means equipment in which ballot
labels and ballots are placed to allow a voter to record his
or
her vote by perforating.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to include in the
definition of "electronic voting systems" the recording of votes
on ballots on equipment that registers the votes on a computer
disc.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.