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House adopts incremental election reforms
Three bills that would
make minor changes to Washington’s election system were adopted today by
the House of Representatives. Twentieth District Reps. Richard DeBolt
and
Gary
Alexander supported two of the measures, but expressed
disappointment that more significant changes are not being considered. DeBolt and Alexander say the bills that passed the House fail to address
several issues of concern raised during the 2004 election.
“This has become a
front-burner issue because the citizens have legitimate concerns about
mistakes made in some counties and doubts raised about the outcome of
the election this fall,” said Alexander, R-Olympia. “The discrepancies
in the way votes were handled and counted were serious enough that we
still cannot be certain who won the election. Unless we take direct aim
at the problems we’ve seen the public will continue to have doubts about
the integrity of our elections process.”
“The public’s trust in the accuracy of elections is fundamental to
maintaining the people’s faith in representative government,” said
DeBolt, R-Chehalis. “We can’t expect people to have confidence in
elected officials if they don’t have confidence in the process that puts
them in office. We’ve made a few improvements today, but the Legislature
has yet to embark on a serious attempt to make elections as accurate and
fair as they can be. That should be our goal.”
The House approved three
separate election bills today, including House Bill 1749, which calls on
the secretary of state to review election policies and procedures once
every three years and instructs counties to take corrective action for
problems uncovered. House Bill 2027 would move the primary election date
from the third Tuesday in September to the third Tuesday in August.
“Holding the primary
earlier will give the counties more time to prepare and mail ballots to
absentee voters for the general election. This is important to giving
our overseas military voters the opportunity to participate in
elections,” said DeBolt.
“We can give counties more
time and tools to make elections more efficient,” said Alexander. “But
ultimately, we need accountability measures to ensure accuracy and
standardized procedures so that all votes are treated equally, whether
you live in Lewis County or King County.”
Alexander and DeBolt voted
against House Bill 1754, which would make it easier for counties to
convert to all mail-in-ballot elections. The lawmakers cited concerns
with the integrity of requiring an all-mail elections and the
elimination of traditional community polling places.
House Republicans have
introduced legislation to enact comprehensive election reforms that
would clean up voter registration rolls over the next two years, create
standardized procedures for handling provisional ballots that would
prevent them from being counted and mixed in with other ballots until
they are validated, and ensure every vote has a voter by requiring
counties to reconcile the number of voters with the number of ballots
cast.
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For more information, contact:
Brendon Wold, Public
Information Officer: (360) 786-7698
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