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The Senate gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would require the state Department of Health to send a monthly list of death certificates to the Secretary of State's Office.
The idea is to prevent the names of the dead from staying on voter rolls and for identities of dead people from being used to commit voter fraud.
Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said election officials will get the names of all who die in Arizona, even children.
“This is basically an anti-identity theft provision,” Kavanagh said. “Basically, people who want to steal identities don’t care what the age of the person is, they are just looking for legitimate names.”
A similar version of the bill passed the House last month.
Officials in the Secretary of State's Office said they could not recall for at least the last five years pursuing a case of voter fraud in which the name of a dead person was used.
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