STAND

STAND. COM. REP. NO.3070

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2002

RE: H.B. No. 1011

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No. 1011, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ELECTIONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to clarify the voting requirements at the polls for a voter with a physical disability.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Elections, Disability and Communications Access Board (Board), League of Women Voters, and an individual.

Your Committee finds that current statutory language requires precinct officials to determine an individual is physically disabled before rendering the individual any assistance. This measure would relieve precinct officials of the onerous burden of making quasi-medical determinations that may be beyond the scope of their professional qualifications.

On the recommendation of the Board, your Committee has amended this measure by deleting its contents and inserting S.B. No. 2552, S.D. 1, a similar measure which only amends subsection (a) of section 11-139, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to:

(1) Delete reference to blindness, disability, and inability to read or write;

(2) Delete reference to precinct officials being satisfied that a physical disability exists;

(3) Delete reference to a voter with a physical disability finding it unduly burdensome to enter the polling place, and inserts a voter needing assistance; and

(4) On the recommendation of the Office of Elections, add that a ballot may be handed to a voter needing assistance within the polling place parking lot as well as within 100 feet of the parking lot.

Your Committee believes that the Senate draft accomplishes the same goals as the House draft but in a more sensitive and convenient manner.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1011, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1011, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary,

		____________________________ BRIAN KANNO, Chair