Before the State Board of Elections grants a certificate of approval, the following automatic tabulating equipment capabilities of an electronic voting system must be demonstrated to the board or its designee. The board shall deny a certificate of approval for automatic tabulating equipment which as demonstrated does not fulfill the following requirements:

1. (1) It enables the voter to vote in absolute secrecy;
2. (2) It enables the voter to vote a ticket selected from all the candidates;
3. (3) It rejects all of a voter's votes for any office or on any measure if the voter has cast more votes for the office or the measure than the voter is entitled to;
4. (4) It accommodates all measures to be submitted to the voters in the form provided by law;
5. (5) It processes 3,000 ballots at a rate of 15 ballots a minute for a central counting unit;
6. (6) It processes 750 ballots at a rate of 10 ballots a minute for a precinct counting unit;
7. (7) It allows no more than one percent of ballots to be rejected by the machine because of ballot feeding errors during a demonstration; and

8. (8) It accurately counts every ballot for each position voted.

   The ballots for testing must contain at least ten contests. The ballots for processing must be at least 90 percent fully voted with the remainder containing overvoted and undervoted ballots. At least 2 percent of the ballots to be tested must be folded in the same manner as absentee ballots.

Source: 16 SDR 20, effective August 10, 1989; 21 SDR 77, effective October 24, 1994; 23 SDR 236, effective July 17, 1997.

General Authority: SDCL 12-17B-17.

Law Implemented: SDCL 12-17B-2.