WA GOP, Franklin auditor sue over ‘devious’ change to voter residency waiting period
KENNEWICK – Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down Washington state’s 30-day waiting period for new voters.
Franklin County’s auditor and the state GOP are suing to stop the change from going into effect for the Nov. 5 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright decided in March that a rule enshrined in Washington’s 1889 constitution saying new voters have to be residents of the state for at least 30 days before being able to vote was a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs agreed with Cartwright’s ruling, which required compliance by Aug. 1, with the intent of the changes being made in time for the November election.
Last week, Auditor Matt Beaton and Washington Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh filed a motion to intervene in hopes of putting a stop to the change. They’re asking the court to either reopen the case, dismiss it entirely or grant their motion to intervene and consider a motion to dismiss.
The filing says that they are only now coming forward because Washington state did not previously make them a party to the lawsuit, especially Beaton whose office it impacts, and have faced “first a trickle, then a flood” of concerns from constituents.
Their attorney, Joel Ard, argues that the state picked its opponents, all Democrats, with care to ensure no one would protest.
Ard is a well-known Seattle attorney who has litigated several voting rights related lawsuits across the state.
“This is an urgent election integrity issue that needs to be fixed immediately – before the General Election in early November,” Walsh said in a news release.
“We are asking the court to reverse a devious scheme to destroy the State Constitution’s good rule that a person has to live in Washington for at least 30 days before registering to vote,” he wrote.
Walsh said in the news release that the crux of the problem is that state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Hobbs concocted a “phony consent decree” to end the the 30-day residency requirement, claiming it was the necessary results of a lawsuit.
They believe the lawsuit was “merely an excuse to undermine an important constitutional guarantee of election integrity,” he wrote.
The lawsuit in question was filed in 2023 by the Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans, who argued that the rule was unfair to senior citizens who move often. They argued that it had a particularly harmful impact for their members who not only moved to Washington within a month of an election, but also those who were just moving to a new county or precinct, even if they were a resident of the state.
“New members join the Alliance’s ranks each month, including in the month before each federal election, as retirees frequently move to Washington for a variety of reasons, including to be close to family,” attorney for WSARA wrote in the initial filing. “Existing Alliance members also regularly move within the state. Because of the Durational Residency Requirement, such members – who would otherwise vote in Washington and in their current county and precinct – will be unable to do so.”
The court will consider the motion to intervene at an Oct. 11 hearing. The general election is Nov. 5 and residents can visit any state auditor’s office until 8 p.m. that day to register to vote in that election.