General Assembly Raised Bill No. 5173
FEBRUARY SESSION, 2018 LCO No. 1242
*01242_______GAE*
Referred to Committee on GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION AND ELECTIONS
Introduced by:
(GAE)
General Assembly
Raised Bill No. 5173
FEBRUARY SESSION, 2018
LCO No. 1242
*01242_______GAE*
Referred to Committee on GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION AND ELECTIONS
Introduced by:
(GAE)
AN ACT PROTECTING THE PRIVACY OF VOTERS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) (a) (1) Except as provided in subdivision (2) of this subsection, voter registration information maintained pursuant to title 9 of the general statutes by the Secretary of the State and any registrar of voters shall not be used for any personal, private or commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, (A) harassment of any voter or voter's household, (B) advertisement, solicitation, sale or marketing of products or services to any voter or voter's household, or (C) reproduction in print, audio or video broadcast or display on the Internet or any computer terminal.
(2) Such voter registration information with respect to any voter shall only be provided, subject to the provisions of sections 54-240 to 54-240o, inclusive, (A) for election, primary or referendum conduct purposes, (i) to a candidate for federal, state or local office, to a committee for or against a referendum or to a political party or political committee, (ii) to a person pursuant to subdivision (2) of subsection (b) of this section, or (iii) to an election, primary or referendum official pursuant to subdivision (3) of subsection (b) of this section, (B) for scholarly or journalistic purposes, to a person, or (C) for governmental purposes, as determined by the Secretary of the State, to a government agency. When such information is provided pursuant to subparagraph (A) or (B) of this subdivision, only the year of birth of such voter shall be disclosed, and when such information is provided pursuant to subparagraph (C) of this subdivision, the full date of birth of such voter shall be disclosed.
(b) (1) Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, any motor vehicle operator's license number, identity card number, Social Security number and any other unique identifier used for the purpose of generating a voter registration record or added to such record for compliance with the requirements of the Help America Vote Act, P.L. 107-252, as amended from time to time, shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed to any person.
(2) Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, the signature of any voter on a voter registration record or any image of such signature shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed, except that an election, primary or referendum official shall permit a person to view such signature for comparison with the signature on a voter registration application, petition or any image of such application or petition. Any signature viewed pursuant to this subdivision shall not be copied.
(3) Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, if a voter submits to the Secretary of the State a signed statement that nondisclosure of such voter's name from the official registry list is necessary for the safety of such voter or the voter's family, the name and address of such voter on a voter registration record shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed, except that an election, primary or referendum official may view such information on the official registry list when such list is used by any such official at a polling place on the day of an election, primary or referendum.
(c) (1) No government agency, or any officer or employee of such agency, shall be civilly liable for disclosure of voter registration information in violation of this section, unless such violation was wilful or due to gross negligence.
(2) (A) Any person or entity to which voter registration information, including the signature of a voter, has been provided pursuant to subdivision (2) of subsection (a) of this section shall itself comply with the restrictions contained in this section on disclosure of such voter registration information.
(B) Any person or entity that obtains or uses voter registration information, including the signature of a voter, not in accordance with the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a class C felony punishable by a term of imprisonment of not more than ten years and a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, or both.
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1 from passage New section
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1
from passage
New section
Statement of Purpose:
To limit the scope of voter registration information available to certain entities and prohibit certain uses of such information.
[Proposed deletions are enclosed in brackets. Proposed additions are indicated by underline, except that when the entire text of a bill or resolution or a section of a bill or resolution is new, it is not underlined.]