On Monday, the United State House of Representatives passed a reintroduced SECURE Notarization Act as House Bill 1059. Upon passage, the bill was sent to the Senate, where it has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. The SECURE Notarization Act would immediately enable remote online notarizations, and electronic notarizations, in all of the United States, augmenting existing state laws and regulations to allow use of communication technology to satisfy personal appearance requirements and for notaries to use an electronic signature for affixing their signature.
As you may recall, the SECURE Notarization Act was passed by the House in the 117th Congress which ended January 3, 2023, without being passed by the Senate. With the establishment of a new Congress, the bill needed to be reintroduced to be considered again, and it would need to be passed by both houses of Congress in order to be sent to the President for signature and to become law.
The SECURE Notarization Act was reintroduced to the U.S. House on February 17, 2023, by Representative Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) and passed by the House on February 28, 2023. The text of the reintroduced bill remains the same as the prior bill, only renaming the act to the SECURE Notarization Act of 2023.
You can review our prior articles on the prior version of the bill, with summarization of changes here and here.
DocMagic will continue to monitor developments with this bill and provide notifications as necessary.
