Delaware General Assembly

CHAPTER 434

FORMERLY

SENATE BILL NO. 407

Section 1. Amend §5701, Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking subsection (a) in its entirety and substituting in lieu thereof:

“(a) The Superior court shall convene in each county on the second day after the general election, at 10 a.m., for the performance of the duties imposed upon it by§6 of Article V of the Constitution of this State and by this chapter. Thereupon the Court, with the aid of such of its officers and such sworn assistants as it shall appoint, shall publicly ascertain the state of the election throughout the county and in the respective election districts by calculating the aggregate amount of all the votes for each office that shall have been given in all of the election districts of the county for every person voted for such office. For this purpose, the court shall utilize the voting machine recording tapes, voting machine certificates, absentee vote tally sheets and write-in vote tally sheets for each election district provided by the Prothonotary and the Department of Elections for its county, whose representatives shall sit as observers and assistants to the Court during said calculation of the vote.”

Section 2. Amend §5702, Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking subsections (a) and (b) in their entirety and substituting in lieu thereof:

“(a) Whenever the voting machine recording tapes, voting machine certificates, absentee vote tally sheets, write-in vote tally sheets and absentee ballot box for any election district are not produced when the Court convenes or whenever any voting machine is not available by 12 noon, the Court may issue summary process against the election officers of such election district or any other persons to bring such documents or objects forthwith into the Court or to make them available for inspection by the Court.

(b) Whenever the documents produced do not agree or there is a complaint under oath of fraud or mistake in any such document, or if fraud, mistake or omission is apparent on the face of such document, the Court shall:

(1) Open and examine the necessary voting machines and/or absentee ballot boxes;

(2) Make a recount of the votes contained therein;

(3) Correct any fraud, mistake or omission in any document or paper relating to the election.”

Section 3. Amend §5702(d), Title 15 of the Delaware code by striking the words “certificates of election” and substituting in lieu thereof the words “absentee vote tally sheets”.

Section 4. Amend §5705(b), Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking the phrases “Prothonotary, 2;” and “Coroner, 2;” in their entirety.

Section 5. Amend §5706(a), Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking the phrases “of Prothonotary,” and “hundreds and” in their entirety.

Section 6. Amend §5706(b), Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking the sentence “In case of Prothonotary….was duly elected Prothonotary for…..County.” in its entirety.

Section 7. Amend §5708, Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking the phrase “Prothonotary,” In its entirety.

Section 8. Amend §5709(a)(8), Title 15 of the Delaware Code by striking the phrases “of Prothonotary,” and “and of coroner” in their entirety and by then inserting the word “and” between the phrases “register in chancery,” and “of sheriff”.

Section 9. Amend §5715, Title 15 of the Delaware Code by inserting words “or representative” after the word “senatorial” wherever it appears and by inserting the words “or Representative” following the word “Senator” in subsection (a).