What We Learned

Key Issues and Vulnerabilities in Washington’s Election Process

During the course of our research, we have covered a lot of ground, and made a ton of progess in understanding what is going on behind the scenes. Browse the News section for the most recent discoveries.

We also keep an eye out for what is heading our way. See this article about Ranked Choice Voting to learn about one of our biggest threats on the horizon. Also see the article about the recount process and how Albert Sensors are used in the county election system.

Elections 101 is full of educational materials, which may be helpful in educating the public or elected officials in the vulnerable state our elections have been put in.

52 U.S.C. §§ 20701-20706 Complete Disregard for the Law

The Civil Rights Act of 1960, now codified at 52 U.S.C. §§ 20701-20706, governs certain “[f]ederal election records.” Section 301 of the Act requires state and local election officials to “retain and preserve” all records relating to any “act requisite to voting” for twenty-two months after the conduct of “any general, special, or primary election” at which citizens vote for “President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, [or] Member of the House of Representatives,” 52 U.S.C. § 20701.

County Auditor’s have not preserved all election records for the 22 month federal record retention requirement, and allowed the voting counting system’s logs to be deleted. Even if we were allowed to look and see if there were signs of fraud, or foreign interference, the evidence would no longer be there.

Legislature Admits Knowledge of Election Interference Attempts

RCW 29A.12.200

Findings-Intent- 2020 c 101: “The legislature finds that public confidence in state elections systems and election data are of paramount consideration to the integrity of the voting process. The legislature also finds that recent events have revealed an intentional and persistent effort by foreign entities to influence election systems and other cybernetworks. Therefore, the legislature intends to review the state’s electoral systems and processes and take appropriate measures to identify whether foreign entities were responsible for the intrusions.”

The legislators and other officials in the state are aware of election interference attempts, but when questioned about the 2020 election, claim it was the most secure in history. In June of 2020, before the presidential election, the legislature added the comment above to RCW 29A.12.200, restricting public access to pertinent information regarding our election, it’s security and prohibits the people from obtaining answers to questions that could restore the public’s faith in the election process.

Statewide control

VoteWA is the statewide election management system used by every county within the state. This system connects all the voter registration data and everything election related.

The system was created by the former Washington Secretary of State, Kim Wyman, who now works for the Biden Administration with CISA on election security on the national level.

VoteWA manages elections for the entire state. This system is accessible remotely by the support staff, in case there are any hiccups, and we also know that during the 2020 election, several election staff had remote access also, thanks to Covid.

Print Ballots Online

In Washington state anyone can get a replacement ballot issued online and print it at home.  This is another feature of VoteWa, and only takes about one minute to complete. No security questions, no identity verification.  All you need is first and last name, and the date of birth.  Which, by the way, is available to anyone who has a copy of the registration data, a publicly available database which includes this information (and more) for every voter within the state.  

In the process of requesting a replacement ballot, the website informs voters that if they proceed to request a replacement ballot, their original ballot will be invalidated.  Meaning it will no longer be counted if received.  

There isn’t anything stopping anyone from requesting a replacement ballot for you, filling it out, and then sending it in.  You will get no notification that a replacement ballot was issued. You will also not be notified when your ballot that was sent to you is not counted due to a new ballot already being issued.  This method creates a major risk, and Washington state is proud of this feature.  It cannot be much easier to steal people’s votes.

There were 248,435 replacement ballots issued, according to information published on the Secretary of States website. 67,733 of which were generated by VoteWA, and another 37,764 created by an “other online source.”  King county is the only county with any ballots reported from an “other online source.”  This information is available on the SOS’ reconciliation report, which is posted on their website in the election’s “data” section. 

Read more about VoteWA, who created it and still has access to it here.

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Washington’s Thirty Day Residency Requirement for Voters Was Quietly Demolished

In November of 2023, the Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans filed an AMENDED COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF  in the  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON against […]

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Interfering With Citizen Oversight of Elections Through Delayed Records

Hand Counting Challenges for Washington State

HB 1816 Prohibits the Forwarding of Ballots

HB 1592 – Ranked Choice Voting in Presidential Primaries

Boots on the Ground

There are some groups canvassing throughout the state, one of them is the Washington Voter Research Project. They have done a great job at getting to the bottom of our voter registration concerns.  These are volunteers who go door to door with a list of people who are registered at each address.

They confirm with the people living at a residence that the data on their lists taken from the WA voter registration database is accurate. When there is a discrepancy, they document this, and at times when relevant ask for an affidavit from the homeowner. For example, if 4 people voted from an address according to their records, and a resident answers the door and claims that only 2 people voted from their home, this is documented. Notes are made about voters who did not legally vote from the address, because they do not reside there.

Many people were shocked to learn there were people unknown to them voting from their address. Read the findings of canvassers in Thurston County and the Skagit Voter Integrity Project Summary Report These are great reports which reflect the state of our voter registration data. If our registration data is flawed, how can we have a secure and trustworthy election?

Now if the county Auditors were interested in a secure election, they would look into these anomalies, and remove these people who are casting illegal votes. Many of them were provided lists by the canvassing teams. The hope was they would look into it and remove these people or inactivate them. Instead, they offer excuses as to why they aren’t legally allowed to act on the lists provided to them.

Excess Ballots

According to data obtained from the SOS website, there were 361,996 more ballots issued than there were registered voters within the state for the 2020 general election. That is 7.5% of the total ballots issued. Which may not sound like a lot, but there were several races within the state which were won by a very small number of votes.

Careless Ballot Distribution

In the 2020 general election there were, at minimum, 27,054 voters with overseas mailing addresses. Of those, 21,156 voters were credited a vote in November’s election. That is 78% turnout for overseas Washingtonians. That is unless you believe the 2020 Census data, which states there are 10,665 Washington residents who currently live overseas. Then we had 198% turnout. We sent 54,641 ballots out of state and credited 36,822 of them a vote. Likely more than that.

The “Audit”

Many times, we have been told that there are security measures in place and “audits” that are done after every election. Read why those are ineffective HERE. There is also information on a current citizen’s initiative aiming to require a more comprehensive audit of the actual ballots.