Spin Control: Partisan divide over election laws shows up in new Washington laws

In Washington, as in much of the country, almost nothing divides Democrats and Republicans more than how secure elections are.

Several bills that make adjustments to the laws governing voter registration and election procedures that were signed last week by Gov. Bob Ferguson would seem to be perfect examples.

One changes the rules for challenging whether a voter is in fact able to be registered and cast a ballot. A second sets up rules for deciding whether minorities are being unlawfully disadvantaged by the way local boundaries for an office are drawn. The third restricts local election officials from releasing personal data from their county’s voter database, reserving that power to the secretary of state, who serves as the state elections officer.

All three passed the Legislature on strictly partisan votes. Democrats all yes, Republicans all no.

The bill that restricts the release of voter information is a clear response to the Trump administration’s demand for certain personal data on Washington voters, which Secretary of State Steve Hobbs has refused. That demand is in court, and whoever loses at the district level is likely to appeal to 9th Circuit, and so on. But it’s not surprising that Republicans in the Legislature would side with the Republican administration and Democrats would side with Hobbs, a fellow Democrat.

The partisan divide was not always so great. For most of the past 42 years in which the governor’s office was held by a Democrat, the secretary of state’s office was held by a Republican. Those Republicans helped move the state to all-mail voting and defended its accuracy and security.

Among the new rules for challenging a voter’s registration is a requirement that the challenger be in the same county. While one could argue that wrong is wrong, no matter who points it out or from where, this seems clearly designed to prevent wholesale challenges from a person or office based on dubious criteria like “that last name seems suspicious.” Some 20 years ago, a Soap Lake man filed challenges to voters in 11 counties, including 161 in Spokane.

Asked about his criteria for selecting the voters on the lists, he replied “We eliminated the names that sounded American-born, like John Smith, or Powell.” On the list were voters with Hispanic, Asian, Italian and Greek surnames.

Nothing came of the challenges, but that’s not to say elections officials’ time – and taxpayers’ money – wasn’t expended in rejecting them.

The call-for-boundary-reform bill is the latest skirmish in a battle over borders for local and legislative offices in Central Washington.

As those bills were signed last week, the U.S. Senate was knotted over a bill to give the federal government more control over elections, including a provision that could force Washington to drop its all-mail voting system and go back to poll-site voting. In that case, Democrats are opposed, but are joined by a few Republicans, some of whom are also in all-mail states.

In many of the debates over election laws, Republicans often say that voters lack confidence in the integrity of our elections and the state or federal government should take steps to address their concerns.

They seem to suggest this distrust in the election process – whether it’s how voters are registered, how ballots are cast or whether the results are correct – has arisen organically. While some people have always had such suspicions, many others have joined their ranks in recent years as a result of constant denigration of many aspects of the elections process based on unproven or disproven complaints.

The irony of this phenomenon is that most people who work the hardest fanning the flames of those suspicions are, themselves, holding office as a result of those very elections.

Since they never offer to resign over alleged election fraud, one can only assume they believe the elections that put them in office were fine, but those other elections in those other cities, counties or states are suspect.

Another scam alert

A text popped up on the cellphone late last week marked URGENT: Final Enforcement Notice.

It claimed that I had failed to “discharge an outstanding vehicle-related liability” and, according to a state statute, my account “is now marked for immediate enforcement procedures.” I had until midnight the next day to avoid a series of actions, including registration revocation, registration block and fees.

To avoid all this badness, I should click on what it said was the link to the Washington State Department of Transportation portal.

As serious as this seemed, there were a few things that didn’t add up. For one thing, the text came from a 208 area code, which, as any Eastern Washington resident knows, is Idaho. Why would WSDOT be sending out warnings from Idaho?

For another, while the link tried to mimic an official state web address, it included a series of gobbledygook letters and numbers. Plus, WSDOT doesn’t have its own portal; it uses the state’s Secure Access portal.

Scott Thomsen, communications director at the department’s headquarters, said in an email this is a well-known scam being used across the country.

“I’ve gotten several myself,” he added.

The best way to deal with it is to delete the text and block the sender, he advised.