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Election reform bills pass
without key safeguards
A package of election
reform bills falls well short of what is needed to properly address
citizens’ concerns about the state’s election system, according to 12th
District
Rep. Mike
Armstrong, R-Wenatchee. Armstrong, who has worked in
depth on election laws during his time in the Legislature, said
legislation passed by the House today would fail to restore public
confidence in elections and does not take aim at specific problems that
some counties experienced in the state’s most recent gubernatorial
election.
“There is nothing in this
package that will ensure citizens we are serious about restoring
integrity to our elections and correcting the serious mistakes we’ve
seen in the way ballots are handled and counted,” said Armstrong.
“Unless we put meaningful safeguards in place, citizens will continue to
lack confidence in our elections.”
The House approved Senate Bills 5499 and 5743 today. SB 5499 requires
provisional ballots to be distinguishable from other ballots and
requires counties to report any irregularities in the final number of
ballots that are counted. Senate Bill 5743 enhances voter registration
record keeping and calls on the Secretary of State to cross-reference
voter registration lists with other state agency databases to identify
felons.
Armstrong noted that the
election reform legislation is a meager approach to correcting serious
problems that have been found in the state’s election system. The House
rejected several amendments supported by Armstrong that would have
required counties to clean-up voter registration roles, require voters
to show photo ID when they cast ballots at the polls, improve the
integrity of absentee and mail-in ballots, and ensure counties to
reconcile the number of ballots counted with the number of voters
credited with voting.
“Every vote should have a
legal voter. That’s not too much to ask,” said Armstrong. “We aren’t
proposing anything radical in these election reform provisions. We want
to create an election system that is fair and accurate. If we want trust
in government, we need to ensure citizens have confidence in the process
for electing their public officials.”
Among the key election
reform amendments supported by Armstrong that were rejected in the House
included the following:
1) Clean up the voter
rolls by requiring all voters to re-register by August 2006.
2) Require photo ID at the
polls to prevent fraudulent voting, and make it a felony to knowingly
vote illegally.
3) Make all ballots –
absentee, provisional, vote-by-mail and poll-place ballots – look
different to prevent them getting mixed before they are verified as
valid.
4) Protect the integrity
of absentee ballots by adding a second piece of ID information to the
ballot envelope, such as the voter’s birth date, in addition to the
signature match requirement.
5) Allow citizens to
challenging the legality of a voter by evidence that the voter does not
live at the residence on record.
Lawmakers have until the
end of the 2005 session on April 24 to work out differences on election
reform legislation.
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For more information, contact:
John
Sattgast, Public Information Officer: (360) 786-7257
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