GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
1987 SESSION
CHAPTER 833
AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS FOR A CENTRAL VOTER FILE SYSTEM IN THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1. The Secretary of State shall develop and send by mail to each county board of elections by September 15, 1987, a standard format for the providing of data for voter records maintained by county boards of elections on electronic data processing equipment.
Sec. 2. The standard format will be for data provided on magnetic tapes, 8 inch diskettes, 5 1/4 inch diskettes, removable disk packs, or 3 1/2 inch diskettes.
Sec. 3. The standard data format will contain the name, race, address, mailing address, sex, political affiliation, and precinct of each registered voter in the county, and any other information available, such as voting history.
Sec. 4. Each county board of elections that maintains voter records on electronic data processing equipment shall, between October 1 and November 1, 1987, provide to the Secretary of State on one of the electromagnetic media listed in Section 2 above a data file containing voter registration records in the standard format developed and made known by the Secretary of State.
Sec. 5. Each county board of elections that maintains voter records on electronic data processing equipment and that complies with this act shall receive up to the sum of six hundred dollars ($600.00) from the Secretary of State to cover the cost of the magnetic media and other expenses associated with the cost of preparing the magnetic media in the standard format.
Sec. 6. The Secretary of State shall contract with the Board of Governors of The University of North Carolina to convert the data received from the county boards of elections to a single data tape file in the following formats that can be used and produced by the State Computer Center of the State Information Processing Services: 9-track, 1600 bit-per-inch, EBCDIC tapes; and 9-track, 1600 bit-per-inch, ASCII tapes. The University of North Carolina shall create the converted, merged data tape file and deliver it to the Secretary of State not later than December 1, 1987.
Sec. 7. The Secretary of State shall provide, upon written request after December 1, 1987, to the State Chairman of each political party one magnetic copy of the converted, merged data tape file.
Sec. 8. In years following 1987, the Secretary of State and the county boards of elections shall adopt the following schedule for producing and distributing the converted, merged data files:
(1) In even-numbered years, the county boards of elections shall send the tapes or diskettes in the standard format to the Secretary of State not earlier than June 15 but not later than July 1. The Secretary of State, upon written request, shall make one copy of the converted, merged tapes available to the State Chairman of each political party on request after August 1.
(2) In odd-numbered years, the county boards of elections shall send the tapes or diskettes in the standard format to the Secretary of State not earlier than June 1, but not later than July 1. The Secretary of State, upon written request, shall make one copy of the converted, merged tapes available to the State Chairman of each political party after August 15.
Sec. 9. The Secretary of State shall sell, upon written request, to other public and private organizations and persons copies of the full converted, merged data tape file for the cost of one thousand dollars ($1,000) per copy.
Sec. 10. The Secretary of State shall in no way be required to process or produce copies of the converted, merged data tapes that contain less than the full list of registered voters for the State of North Carolina.
Sec. 11. The cost charged to the State Chairman of each political party for providing tapes under this act is limited to the cost of the magnetic tapes.
Sec. 12. Section 53(a) of Chapter 757 of the Session Laws of 1985 is repealed.
Sec. 13. For fiscal year 1987-88, of the funds appropriated to the Secretary of State, the sum of seventy thousand dollars ($70,000) already appropriated for that purpose shall be used to implement this act. Of the funds appropriated to the General Assembly by Section 53(b) of Chapter 757, Session Laws of 1985, which have been carried forward, the sum of seventy thousand dollars ($70,000) shall be transferred to the Secretary of State to be used to implement this act for fiscal year 1988-89.
Sec. 13.1. For purposes of this act, "political party" shall have the same meaning as defined in G.S. 163-96.
Sec. 14. This act is effective upon ratification.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 14th day of August, 1987.