Sec. 1. 21-A MRSA §607, sub-§6 is enacted to read:

6.__Electronically produced and electronically counted ballots.__The official ballot box for electronically produced or electronically counted ballots must be separate from the one used to receive provisional ballots as defined in section 808 and must be clearly marked as such.

Sec. 2. 21-A MRSA §737-B is enacted to read:

§737-B.__Recount functions and costs

1.__Random recount.__At the discretion of the Secretary of State any election may be followed within 120 hours of polls closing by a random statewide selection of up to 2% of individual voting places that use voting machines for a manual vote recount to audit the voting machines' accuracy.__These recounts must be performed immediately following any recounts pursuant to section 737-A.__Random recounts must use the ballots produced by machine tabulation and must be performed by volunteer teams organized and trained specifically for random recounts by the Office of the Secretary of State.__Such teams must consist of enrolled and unenrolled registered voters, in proportion to the percentages, by party and nonparty affiliation, of voter enrollment registered in the previous election cycle.__Random recounts must be open to public observation.__The recounted vote totals for these sample precincts must serve as the final tally for those precincts.

2.__Recount trigger.__If there is any discrepancy between a machine tally and the recount tally conducted pursuant to subsection 1 that is greater than .1% and that can not be accounted for by voter error or ambiguity of voter intent, that discrepancy may trigger further manual recounts at the discretion of the Secretary of State from voting places that employ the same machine type as that voting place. If more than 2 such recounts are instituted, all like machines in the State must be recounted.__ Recounts must proceed without delay upon being so triggered and ordered. The recounted vote totals for triggered recounts must also serve as the final tally for those machines.

3.__Statistical analysis of recount results; recounts.__Before the ballots associated with any election are discarded, the office of the Secretary of State may undertake a statistical analysis of all recount discrepancies discovered by random recount or otherwise in any election.__Such analyses, if undertaken, must be published for public scrutiny 4 weeks prior to any ballot disposal order by the Secretary of State.__Further recounts for any election may be instituted by order of the