AB 983

Under current law, in all contested election cases, a contesting party has the

right to have the ballots opened and to have all errors of the election inspectors,

either in counting or refusing to count any ballot, corrected by the board of

canvassers or court deciding the contest. The ballots and related materials may be

opened only in open session and in the presence of the official having custody of them.

Under this bill, in a contested election in which the difference between the votes

cast for the winning candidate and the votes cast for the runner-up candidate is

equal to or greater than the total number of absentee ballots cast in the contest, as

determined by the administrator of the Elections Commission, each contesting party

has the additional right to a full forensic physical and cyber audit of the election that

is conducted by an independent and nonpartisan auditing firm approved by the

standing committees of the legislature with jurisdiction over election matters and

that includes all of the following:

1. A complete examination of electronic voting machines and systems,

including to the extent applicable, browsers; tabulators; scanners; routers and

firewalls; switches; network and out-of-band management cards; internet or

network connectivity; network and remote access; remote access applications;

evidence showing that software was installed or removed on the machine or system;

flash drives; thumb drives; event logs; scripts that have been run; the date on which

data were last modified and what data were modified, whether during or after the

election; systems and security updates; password policies; multifactor

authentication; databases; adjudication records; administrator accounts; and log-in

records.

2. A complete examination, including by using kinematic artifact detection, of

all physical ballots, including whether ballots meet industry standards with respect

to out-of-calibration measurements, and including, to the extent applicable,

examination of ballot thickness to prevent bleed-through, the types of markers used

for purposes of marking ballots, ballot chain of custody, the number of ballots cast

in the election in comparison with the number of voters, whether absentee ballot

standards were met, and ballot watermarks and dot coding.

3. A physical canvass, and an examination of whether county clerks and

election officials, including volunteers, followed election rules and regulations

mandated by their county.

4. Measures to ensure transparency, including broadcasting audit proceedings

by live stream on the Internet.

Additionally, under the bill, if, after an audit conducted as specified above with

respect to any contested election, the Elections Commission, attorney general, or

district attorney having jurisdiction over the matter determines that a violation of

the laws relating to election threats, bribery, or fraud occurred, the contested election

is null and void, and if any candidate for elected office in the election has since