Election investigators must report probes, and officials must seal equipment

Investigating agencies notify the state commissioner right away. This covers state or local agencies and other state or local entities investigating an election, election officials’ actions, or election misconduct. If the investigation concerns the state commissioner, the agency notifies the governor instead. Notice is due immediately when the investigation is conducted.

The commissioner may cancel certain registrations after 90 days. This applies to registrations designated incomplete, pending, or unconfirmed under the cited registration process. The commissioner must have been unable to contact the voter, or the voter must have failed to provide enough information to complete, verify, or correct the registration after contact. The 90 days refers to how long the registration has held one of those designations.

Election equipment must be secured with a tamper-evident seal. This covers election equipment, including equipment not currently in use. The seal must remain in place at all times.

Election officials order a recount of a public measure when the stated vote-margin limit is met and voters file a petition. This applies to public measures voted on statewide and other public measures. For a statewide measure, the difference between yes and no votes must be less than 0.15 percent. For other measures, it must be less than either 1 percent or 50 votes, whichever is lower; the same limit applies to measures requiring at least 60 percent approval, measured between passage and defeat. The petition must be signed by at least 10 eligible voters or 1 percent of the votes cast on the measure, whichever is greater. Each signer must have been entitled to vote on it, or would have been entitled if registered. The petition must be filed no later than three days after the vote canvass is complete.