Washington State Republican Party sues King County Elections over its use of OmniBallot

Mak­ing good on yes­ter­day’s threat to go to court to under­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in Wash­ing­ton’s elec­tions after they did­n’t get the result they want­ed in a super close statewide race, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty today sued King Coun­ty Direc­tor of Elec­tions Julie Wise, ask­ing for injunc­tive relief to bar the use of a tool called Omni­Page that allows vot­ers to fix issues with their ballots.

The law­suit, filed by Repub­li­can attor­ney Joel Ard in Sno­homish Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, bizarrely argues that the state par­ty’s endorsed can­di­date for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Sue Kuehl Ped­er­son would have advanced to the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion “[b]ut for King Coun­ty’s ille­gal use of the Omni­Bal­lot system.” 

Kuehl Ped­er­son, who had the WSR­P’s endorse­ment, missed out on get­ting to the gen­er­al elec­tion by just forty-nine votes after Demo­c­ra­t­ic King Coun­ty Coun­cil Chair Dave Upthe­grove secured the sec­ond place spot in an extreme­ly close bal­lot bat­tle.

Upthe­grove is now set to go to the gen­er­al elec­tion along with Repub­li­can Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, the first place fin­ish­er. Due to Wash­ing­ton’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic tilt, Upthe­grove will have an in-built advan­tage in the autumn over Her­rera Beutler. 

Had Kuehl Ped­er­son got­ten sec­ond place, Democ­rats would have been locked out of the gen­er­al elec­tion and the office would like­ly have flipped Republican.

The suit asks for injunc­tive relief “against King Coun­ty to bar the report­ing of bal­lots improp­er­ly cured by use of the Omni­Bal­lot sys­tem” along with “entry of judge­ment declar­ing that King Coun­ty’s use of the Omni­Bal­lot sys­tem for bal­lot sig­na­ture cur­ing, in its entire­ty, is invalid because the infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted by the vot­er is received by a third-par­ty before being received by the King Coun­ty Audi­tor in con­tra­dic­tion with RCW 29A.60.165(4)” and “such oth­er and fur­ther relief as the court deems just and equi­table,” which is a stan­dard final prayer for relief in legal challenges.

Accord­ing to the firm that offers it, Omni­Bal­lot is “a mul­ti-mod­u­lar, Web-based elec­tion por­tal that offers an array of ser­vices and solu­tions to the elec­tions com­mu­ni­ty. The Omni­Bal­lot mod­ules offered through the por­tal include remote, acces­si­ble bal­lot­ing, ful­ly ADA-com­pli­ant sam­ple bal­lots, auto-dupli­ca­tion, mobile bal­lot cur­ing and much more!” 

RCW 29A.60.165(4), con­cern­ing unsigned bal­lot dec­la­ra­tions, reads:

An audi­tor who pro­vides elec­tron­ic means for sub­mis­sion of a bal­lot dec­la­ra­tion sig­na­ture shall estab­lish appro­pri­ate pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty pro­to­cols that ensure that the infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted is received direct­ly and secure­ly by the audi­tor and is only used for the stat­ed pur­pos­es of ver­i­fy­ing the sig­na­ture on the voter’s ballot.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty’s law­suit does not explain how King Coun­ty Elec­tions’ use of Omni­Bal­lot vio­lates this RCW. 

The law­suit implies that because Democ­ra­cy Live is a “pri­vate for prof­it third-par­ty com­pa­ny,” state law is inher­ent­ly being vio­lat­ed, but I don’t see any­thing in the law that bars a coun­ty elec­tions office from using a tool like Omni­Bal­lot. There’s clear­ly a require­ment for “appro­pri­ate pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty pro­to­cols that ensure the infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted is received direct­ly and secure­ly by the audi­tor,” but the law does­n’t say an elec­tions offi­cial can’t use a tool offered by a for-prof­it com­pa­ny to facil­i­tate this. 

The com­plaint does­n’t present or refer to any evi­dence show­ing that King Coun­ty’s use of Omni­Bal­lot does­n’t fol­low the “appro­pri­ate pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty pro­to­cols” the law requires. I’m guess­ing whichev­er judge gets this case is going to want to see such evi­dence or the Repub­li­cans’ legal chal­lenge will be dis­missed in very short order. 

Read­ing though the law­suit, it’s also appar­ent that Ard does­n’t know King Coun­ty’s sys­tem of gov­ern­ment very well and did­n’t both­er to do his home­work to learn it, because he makes repeat­ed erro­neous ref­er­ences to “the King Coun­ty Audi­tor” on page three of the com­plaint, includ­ing in the excerpt above. In most coun­ties in Wash­ing­ton, elec­tions are part of the port­fo­lio of the coun­ty audi­tor, but in King Coun­ty, they are not. 

The King Coun­ty Audi­tor is a dif­fer­ent posi­tion than the King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor. The Audi­tor is Kym­ber Walt­mun­son; the Elec­tions Direc­tor is Julie Wise. The audi­tor works under the aus­pices of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil and has no juris­dic­tion over King Coun­ty Elec­tions, which is a dif­fer­ent department. 

Ard recent­ly rep­re­sent­ed Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh and Main­stream Repub­li­cans Chair Dean­na Mar­tinez in their unsuc­cess­ful attempt to have the pub­lic invest­ment impact dis­clo­sures (PIIDs) for three of Wal­sh’s ini­tia­tives removed from the Novem­ber 2024 gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot. The applic­a­bil­i­ty of the NPI-cham­pi­oned law that requires the PIIDs was upheld twice — once by a Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court judge and once by the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court.

Ard got absolute­ly nowhere with his bizarre and ridicu­lous argu­ments in that case, and he seems to be set­ting him­self up for anoth­er defeat in court with this one. 

But per­haps Ard and Walsh don’t care. 

This law­suit may be some sort of tri­al run for the fall, where­upon after the gen­er­al elec­tion results come in, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty will make fur­ther con­spir­a­to­r­i­al state­ments and unfound­ed alle­ga­tions “ques­tion­ing” the returns of the gen­er­al elec­tion when those don’t turn out the way they want, with the goal of under­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in Wash­ing­ton elec­tions and fur­ther harm­ing our democracy.