Author: Kim Strach, Executive Director
Last year’s election law changes required the availability of Multipartisan Assistance Teams (MATs) to provide assistance with mail-in absentee voting at certain facilities, for every election that allows absentee voting. In late 2013, the State Board of Elections conducted temporary rule-making, including notice and comments received from county boards of elections and other interested parties, to adopt Rules as required by the new law. The temporary rules are attached to this memo.
Having MATs Prepared for the May 2014 Primary
The May 2014 primary will be the first major election during which the new laws and rules on MATs will be in effect. To provide a home for information about MATs, including answers to questions from residents and employees of facilities, the State Board of Elections office has published a new webpage to provide basic information about MATs.
The SBE office has also produced several documents related to Multipartisan Assistance Teams. Along with the training manual distributed to CBEs previously, the following documents are being provided along with this memo:
- A document with the required declaration that team members must sign, along with completing the required training, to become certified
- A template for the certification document
- A template for a sheet to log voters who were assisted during a facility visit by a MAT
- A template for a name badge for team members
In order to allow both the CBE and SBE to track the persons who have been certified to be on a MAT in each county, the State Board of Elections is nearing completion of a database tool. This tool will allow Directors to keep track of who has been certified to be on a MAT, when certification occurred and when it expires, the person’s party affiliation and contact information. Upon certification, the tool will also populate the person’s information on the certificate template. It will also allow SBE to maintain a report of the team members in every county. More details about this database tool will be sent to CBEs very soon.
If you have not done so already, please determine who will be asked to be team members on your county’s MAT. Remember the requirement that a MAT must be represented by at least one Republican and one Democrat, and the MAT must be represented as such on all facility visits.* Determining who should be on a MAT is a Board call, although it would be fine for a Director to do this if the Board has delegated that duty.
*If your county’s voters are overwhelmingly affiliated one with party, it is possible for the county board to unanimously appoint an unaffiliated voter to serve as a team member in lieu of a voter of the other party.
MAT Permanent Rules
As mentioned, the current rules on MATs are temporary rules. The State Board of Elections has begun the process to adopt those temporary rules into permanent rules. However, it only makes sense to see how MATs work out in the May 2014 primary, to see if changes to the proposed rules are necessary. With that in mind, the State Board of Elections plans to keep a notice and comment period on MATs open through the month of May 2014, to allow CBEs and other interested parties to provide input about how the new rules worked out during the absentee voting period of the May 2014 primary. Following the May primary, we will survey the CBEs to get their input on all aspects of the MATs, from the rules, to other materials. We hope to continue to evolve our training materials and other documents as well, once the permanent rules have been set.
We appreciate your feedback as the concept of MATs evolves in our State. It is a somewhat new and novel concept, but we hope that it becomes a successful way to provide a voting opportunity to a group of voters who may not find it as easy to vote due to a disability or other circumstances.
[Download the PDF below for text of the temporary MAT rules.]
↓ Multipartisan Assistance Teams and the May 2014 Primary: Numbered Memo 2014-04 (PDF)