Protect American Voters Act

HR 4457, the Protect American Voters Act, requires the Election Assistance Commission to create voluntary guidelines for state election officials on using "nonvoting election technology" (like electronic pollbooks, online voter registration, and result reporting systems) by December 2026. These guidelines must address security, accuracy, and usability, developed with input from a Standards Board and technical experts. States can use existing federal election security grant funds to adopt or upgrade compliant technology until 2024. The bill directly affects state election officials and focuses on setting non-binding standards for election support systems that do not handle ballot casting or counting.