A. The secretary of state and an agency shall not disclose the residential address, delivery address, telephone number or email address of a participant unless the information is required to be disclosed pursuant to a court order. A person or agency that receives a participant's residential address, delivery address, telephone number or email address pursuant to a court order shall not in turn disclose that information unless pursuant to a court order or unless the person has been decertified.

B. The secretary of state shall maintain the confidentiality of all records relating to an applicant for or participant in the confidential substitute address program while the person is a participant and shall:

(1) store all tangible copies of program records in locked equipment;

(2) store all electronic copies of program records in a password-protected system;

(3) restrict access to all program records to secretary of state staff members who are approved to access the records as provided in this section; and

(4) release program records only on a court's order.

C. The secretary of state shall establish a system for restricting access to program records to approved staff members. Before being approved and granted access to program records, the staff member shall:

(1) submit to a criminal background check performed by the department of public safety;

(2) not have a record of a sex offense, felony or a misdemeanor violation related to domestic violence or sexual assault on the results of the person's criminal background check; and

(3) complete forty hours of training, including a domestic violence training course provided by the children, youth and families department and sexual assault training provided by the department of health or the crime victims reparation commission or its successor.

D. The secretary of state shall appoint a person to be the administrator of the election component of the confidential substitute address program in accordance with the Intimate Partner Violence Survivor Suffrage Act. The administrator shall meet the requirements of Subsection C of this section, and administration of the Intimate Partner Violence Survivor Suffrage Act [1-6C-1 to 1-6C-9 NMSA 1978] shall conform to the requirements of Subsections A and B of this section and Subsection E of Section 40-13B-5 NMSA 1978.

History: Laws 2018, ch. 40, § 8; 2019, ch. 226, § 12.

The 2019 amendment, effective July 1, 2019, required the secretary of state to appoint an administrator of the election component of the confidential substitute address program in accordance with the Intimate Partner Violence Survivor Suffrage Act, and directed the appointed administrator to administer the Intimate Partner Violence Survivor Suffrage Act in conformity with certain provisions of the Confidential Substitute Address Act; and added Subsection D.