Honorable Bryan Hughes, Chair, Senate Committee on State Affairs
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB507 by Bettencourt (Relating to election supplies and the conduct of elections; creating criminal offenses; increasing criminal penalties.), As Introduced
The bill would create two Class A misdemeanor offenses applicable to the authority responsible for procuring election supplies for failure to provide a certain number of ballots and failure to supplement distributed ballots. The bill would increase the penalty for the offense of failure to distribute or deliver supplies from a Class C misdemeanor to a Class A misdemeanor, the penalty for the offense of obstructing distribution of supplies from a Class C misdemeanor to a state jail felony, and the penalty for the offense of unlawfully revealing information before polls close from a Class A misdemeanor to a state jail felony.
Creating new criminal offenses and increasing the penalty for existing offenses may result in an increase in demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.
In fiscal year 2024, there were no arrests, no referrals, no placements onto adult community supervision, no individuals admitted into an adult state correctional institution, and no individuals admitted into a juvenile state correctional institution for the offenses of failure to distribute or deliver supplies, obstructing distribution of supplies, and unlawfully revealing information before polls close.
It is assumed that any impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources would not be significant.