Fiscal Summary

Increase State Expenditures – $1,506,600/FY21-22 $1,598,100/FY22-23 $1,537,600/FY23-24 and Subsequent Years

Bill Summary

This bill requires the comptroller of the treasury to establish an office of election integrity within the department of audit to perform and supervise election audits. This bill requires the office of election integrity to investigate the results of each general election for president of the United States and for each United States congressional race in this state, by performing:

(1) A forensic voter audit for each county;

(2) A forensic voting system equipment audit for each county that the comptroller deems necessary to validate the election results; and

(3) A full forensic election audit of each county that utilized physical ballots.

This bill requires each county election commission and state and local official to cooperate with the office of election integrity and meet each deadline established by the office of election integrity for purposes of meeting the requirements of this bill. If a county election commission or a state or local election official does not cooperate with an office of election integrity investigation in a timely manner, then, upon referral of the matter by the comptroller of the treasury, the attorney general and reporter must seek a writ of mandamus ordering the commission or official to comply with the request of the office of election integrity.

This bill requires the office of election integrity to complete the investigation of the 2020 election no later than July 31, 2022. Each subsequent investigation must be completed no later than one year from the date of the election under investigation.

This bill requires the office of election integrity to report the results of each investigation to the governor, the speaker of the senate, and the speaker of the house of representatives:

(1) No later than August 31, 2022, for the initial investigation; and

(2) No later than one month from the completion of the investigation in subsequent years.

This bill requires the office of election integrity to prepare an audit plan for the 2022 general election and each subsequent election. The initial plan must be presented to the speaker of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives no later than September 30, 2022, and no later than September 30 in subsequent election years.