out with the grant. (b) Grant implementation plan The grant implementation plan described in this subsection is a plan developed by the State for using funds provided by the grant to carry out some or all of the following, and to otherwise meet the requirements of section 301 which are first imposed on a State or jurisdiction pursuant to the amendments made by section 2 of the Safeguarding Election Infrastructure Act of 2017, during the grant implementation period: (1) Providing voting machines that are less than 10 years old as of the date on which the State submits its application for the grant under subsection (a). (2) Updating voting equipment to provide a verifiable paper trail at polling stations. (3) Implementing strong chain of custody procedures for the physical security of voting equipment and paper records at all stages of the process. (4) Conducting pre-election testing on every voting machine and ensuring paper ballots are available wherever electronic machines are used. (5) Keeping offline backups of voter registration lists. (6) Providing a secure voter registration database that logs requests submitted to the database. (7) Publishing and enforcing a policy detailing use limitations and security safeguards to protect voters’ personal information in the voter registration process. (8) Providing secure processes and procedures for reporting vote tallies. (9) Providing a secure platform for disseminating vote totals. (c) Grant implementation period defined In this part, the grant implementation period with respect to a grant is the 4-year period which begins on the first day of the fiscal year for which the grant is awarded. 297B. Criteria for evaluating applications (a) Award basis The Commission shall award grants to States under this part on a competitive basis, based on the quality of the State’s application submitted under section 297A, including— (1) the quality and likelihood of success of the State’s grant implementation plan described in section 297A(b), including the State’s capacity to