S.Amdt. 6273

SA 6273. Ms. KLOBUCHAR submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 5499 submitted by Mr. Reed (for himself and Mr. Inhofe) and intended to be proposed to the bill H.R. 7900, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2023 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ____. TWO-WAY MILITARY BALLOT BARCODE TRACKING.

(a) In General.--The Presidential Designee under section 101(a) of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall conduct a pilot program to provide full ballot tracking of overseas military absentee ballots through the mail stream for elections for Federal office occurring during calendar year 2024.

(b) Pilot Program Requirements.--The pilot program described under subsection (a) shall--

(1) be similar to the 2016 Military Ballot Tracking Pilot Program conducted by the Federal Voting Assistance Program of the Department of Defense;

(2) evaluate commercially available barcodes and envelopes;

(3) prioritize ballots cast in political subdivisions in which the State or local election official responsible for the receipt of voted absentee ballots in the election carries out procedures to track and confirm the receipt of such ballots and makes information on the receipt of such ballots available to the individual who cast the ballot;

(4) evaluate alternatives to ballots being mailed through countries that may not conduct scanning;

(5) be available to not less than 50,000 ballots of members of the Armed Forces; and

(6) include special, primary, and run off elections.

(c) Authorization of Funds.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the Federal Voting Assistance Program of the Department of Defense (or a successor program) such sums as are necessary for the purpose of carrying out the program described in subsection (a).