HAVA State Plan Committee

Review of Draft Preliminary State Plan

Date & time:  May 1, 2003

                        2 PM – 4 PM

Location:       Legislative Office Building,

Room 308

Attendance:

State Plan Committee participants: Paul Bergeron (Nashua City Clerk); Christine Dupre (Candia Town Clerk); Orville (Bud) Fitch II (Assistant Attorney General); Carol Nadeau (Governor’s Commission on Disabilities); Anthony B. Stevens (Assistant Secretary of State)

Department of State: Thomas Manning (Assistant Secretary of State)

Observers: Charity Ross (House Democratic Leaders Office);

Clyde Terry (Granite State Independent Living)

Business:

The committee reviewed the May 1, 2003 draft of the Preliminary State Plan, and made the following changes:

1)      In Background, after paragraph 2, add the following sentence: “The plan will describe the additional responsibilities imposed by HAVA.”

2)      The term “election day” should be consistently capitalized or not capitalized throughout the text of the plan.  It was decided not to capitalize, since the reference in the text is general, not specific.  

3)      Place page breaks before orphaned headings to assure continuity of paragraphs.

4)      In Section 4, paragraph 1, expand on existing language as follows:  “New processes and guidelines may take the form of internal procedures, regulations, changes to Ballot Law Commission rules or state law.  Legislation will be proposed to amend RSA 656:41 to allow the use of voting machines designed to assist persons with disabilities casting votes privately and independently, as required by HAVA.”

5)      In Section 6, Subsection E, paragraph 2, sentence 1, replace the term “disabled voters” with the term “voters with disabilities”.

6)      In Section 6, Subsection F, paragraph 3, insert at the end of the paragraph the following sentence: “If it is necessary to revise the percentage allocations, priority will be given to equipping each polling place with an accessible voting machine and to establishing the Statewide Database.”

Action Plan:

The Secretary of State will publish the plan as soon as possible with the above changes and encourage comments during the 30-day statewide comment period following publication. The HAVA State Plan Committee will meet after the comment period to consider changes reflecting the comments received.