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House Democrats defeat true
election reforms
Fifth District
Representatives Glenn Anderson and Jay Rodne supported several
amendments earlier today that would have brought meaningful,
common-sense changes to two election reform bills. Unfortunately, House
Democrats defeated most of the amendments and passed two measures that
Anderson and Rodne feel do not fully address Washington’s serious
election problems.
Senate Bills 5499 and 5743
passed the Washington State House of Representatives early Friday
morning after hours of floor debate late Thursday night.
“The right to vote is the
ultimate civil right from which all our other rights and freedoms flow,”
said Anderson, R-Fall City. “Protecting citizens’ right to clean, fair
and accountable elections is the best way to respect democracy.
Unfortunately, the bills we voted on today don’t get us there, because
they simply don’t fix most of the problems we saw in last fall’s
election.”
Rodne agreed.
“Our governor's race
exposed some serious flaws in our election system. Yet, it also provided
legislators an opportunity to work with voters to determine how the
problems can best be addressed,” said Rodne, R-Snoqualmie.
“Unfortunately, many of the election reform ideas that the people
brought forward have been ignored. We owe the people of this state more
than that.”
Democrats in the House
State Government Operations and Accountability Committee stripped many
meaningful provisions from the Senate election reform bills prior to
their arrival on the House floor, much to the chagrin of House
Republicans who believe voters’ views are being ignored.
“After the damage caused
to the public’s faith and trust in our state’s election process
following last November’s historic governor’s election, you would think
that pushing through the necessary reforms – things like following our
state constitution that requires voters be U.S. citizens – would be a
no-brainer,” Anderson said. “Unfortunately, the legislation we voted on
will do little to restore voters’ faith in our election system. This
issue is bigger than newly discovered or enhanced ballots. It’s about
the very state of our democracy. Tens of thousands of Washingtonians
have fought and died to protect our freedom. Passing true election
reform is the least we can do to respect their sacrifice.”
“I believe if you were to
sit down with the average voter and lay out for them the amendments that
House Republicans proposed, they would agree they are common-sense
reforms,” said Rodne. “We're talking about basic concepts such as making
sure every vote has a verifiable voter and requiring photo ID at the
polls, to name a few. All our amendments that were defeated were fair to
any eligible voter.”
Other House Republican
amendments included:
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Express legislative
intent to protect voting rights of U.S citizens who are properly
registered and prevent non-U.S. citizens from casting illegal votes
that denigrate the rights of legal voters.
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Restore integrity to
voter registration rolls by requiring all voters to re-register by
August 2006 to vote in Washington elections.
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Maintain integrity of
voter rolls by requiring proof of citizenship at time of
registration similar to the federal employment requirement.
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Require photo ID at
polls to prevent fraudulent voting.
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Ensure absentee and
vote-by-mail ballots are valid before being counted and identifiable
to prevent improper mixing of ballots.
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Protect the integrity
of absentee ballots by adding a second piece of ID information to
the ballot envelope, such as the voter’s registration date, in
addition to the signature match requirement.
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Stipulate that voter
conduct - not presumed voter intent - be used to determine a vote.
The ballot must be filled out according to established rules.
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Ballot augmentation
would be prohibited, and ballot duplication allowed only when needed
to restore a damaged legal ballot.
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Allow the process for
challenging the legality of a voter to be triggered by evidence that
the voter does not live at the residence on record.
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Ensure every vote has
a voter, requiring counties to reconcile the number of voters with
the number of ballots cast, and triggering an automatic revote when
discrepancies exceed the margin of victory.
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For more information, contact:
Bobbi Cussins, Public
Information Officer - (360) 786-7252
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