Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 685 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to prohibit inclusion of any person's social security number in the poll book prepared for each voter to sign upon application to vote at the polling place.

A concerned individual testified in support of this measure. The Office of Elections provided comments.

Your Committee finds that identity theft is a serious problem. Voters should not be discouraged from registering to vote out of concern that their social security numbers will be on public display at the polling site.

This measure protects citizens' informational privacy without limiting safeguards designed to assure that each individual who receives a ballot at the polling place is entitled to vote, and votes only once. The entire social security number may continue to be collected as a unique identifier in the voter registration system. Your Committee was informed through testimony from the Office of Elections that collection of the entire nine-digit social security number exempts Hawaii from a federal Help America Vote Act requirement to compare our voter registration file against other databases, such as the social security database.

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 S.B. No. 685 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.