Tie vote in committee leaves absentee verification bill stalled after Secretary of State warns of logistical challenges

House File 37-23, proposing verification checks before mailing absentee ballots to people on the permanent absentee list, failed to pass the Government Elections and Operations Committee after a 5-5 roll call on a contentious set of procedural and technical questions.

Nicholle Freeman of the Office of the Secretary of State told the committee that deceased voters are marked in a separate "deceased" designation in the statewide voter registration system and are not on active public lists. Freeman said many verification checks already occur when registrations or absentee applications are processed, including federal HAVA/SSA checks comparing legal name, date of birth and matching identifiers such as a driver's license number or the last four of a Social Security number.

"Deceased voters are already not on active voter rolls...they are not in active status," Nicholle Freeman testified. "The deceased status is a separate designation from inactive status in our system."

Freeman also cautioned the panel that removing records entirely would eliminate voter history and could frustrate investigations or the restoration of records after administrative error: "If that record was completely removed, there'd be no ability to restore that person's voter history and other information," she said.

Other testifiers and committee members expressed support for better timing of verification checks to ensure absentee ballots are not mailed to people who moved or died, but raised concerns about the bill's implementation timeline and cost. A public testifier warned the bill's effective date could come just days after absentee voting begins and pointed to known mismatches in verification systems that can reject legitimate voters.

After extended questioning about county practices, electronic poll‑book behavior and the logistics of re‑verifying a permanent list, members requested further work. The roll call ended 5-5; the bill did not advance but was left laid over for additional study.

The committee record shows the office of the Secretary of State said it would provide numbers about annual inactive-voter maintenance on request; committee members also asked for fiscal details and clarification of county versus state responsibilities before considering the measure further.