Sec. 2. Paper ballot and hand tabulation requirements
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Section 301(a)(2) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 ( 52 U.S.C. 21081(a)(2) ) is amended to read as follows: The voting system shall require the use of an individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballot of the voter’s vote that shall be marked and made available for physical inspection and verification by the voter before the voter’s vote is cast and tabulated. For purposes of this subclause, the term individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballot means a paper ballot marked by the voter by hand or a paper ballot printed or marked through the use of a ballot marking device, so long as the voter shall have the option to mark his or her ballot by hand.
Except as required to meet the accessibility requirements under paragraph (3), in the case of a ballot marking device— the printed or marked paper ballot shall be presented to the voter for physical inspection and verification before the ballot is tabulated and preserved in accordance with clause (ii); the paper ballot shall be printed or marked in such a way that vote selections, including all vote selections scanned by voting systems to tabulate votes, can be inspected and verified by the voter without training or instruction or audited by election officials without the aid of any machine or other equipment; and the ballot marking device shall be designed and built in a manner in which it is mechanically impossible for the device to add or change the vote selections on a printed or marked ballot at any time after the ballot has been presented to the voter for inspection and verification under item (aa).
The voting system shall not preserve or mark the individual, durable, voter-verifiable paper ballots in any manner that makes it possible, at any time after the ballot has been cast, to associate a voter with the ballot cast by the voter or with any other record of the voter's vote selections. The individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballot used in accordance with clause
(i)shall constitute the official ballot and shall be preserved and used as the official ballot for purposes of ballot tabulation and any recount or audit conducted with respect to any election for Federal office in which the voting system is used. Each paper ballot used pursuant to clause
(i)shall be tabulated by hand in any recount conducted with respect to any election for Federal office. In the event of any inconsistencies or irregularities between any vote tallies determined through the use of an optical scanning device and vote tallies determined by tabulating by hand the individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballots used pursuant to clause (i), and subject to subparagraph (B), the individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballots shall be the true and correct record of the votes cast. The requirements of this subparagraph shall apply to all ballots cast in elections for Federal office, including ballots cast by absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and other absentee voters. In the event that— there is any inconsistency between any vote tallies determined through the use of an optical scanning device and vote tallies determined by tabulating by hand the individual, durable, voter-verifiable, paper ballots used pursuant to subparagraph (A)(i) with respect to any election for Federal office; and it is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence (as determined in accordance with the applicable standards in the jurisdiction involved) in any recount, audit, or contest of the result of the election that the paper ballots have been compromised (by damage or mischief or otherwise) and that a sufficient number of the ballots have been so compromised that the result of the election could be changed, the determination of the appropriate remedy with respect to the election shall be made in accordance with applicable State law, except that the electronic tally shall not be used as the exclusive basis for determining the official certified result. For purposes of clause (i), only the paper ballots deemed compromised, if any, shall be considered in the calculation of whether or not the result of the election could be changed due to the compromised paper ballots. Each State and jurisdiction shall be required to comply with the requirements of this paragraph for the first regularly scheduled election for Federal office held more than 1 year after the date of the enactment of the Protecting American Votes and Elections Act of 2019 , and for each subsequent election for Federal office. . Section 301(a)(3)(B) of such Act ( 52 U.S.C. 21081(a)(3)(B) ) is amended by striking direct recording electronic voting system or other . Section 301(a)(4) of such Act ( 52 U.S.C. 21081(a)(4) ) is amended by inserting (including the paper ballots required to be used under paragraph (2)) after voting system . Section 301(d) of such Act ( 52 U.S.C. 21081(d) ) is amended by striking Each State and inserting Except as otherwise provided in this section, each State .
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Sec. 2
Paper ballot and hand tabulation requirements
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