Carleen Johnson
The Center Square Washington

The Washington State Republican Party is officially challenging the results of the primary results in the race for state lands commissioner.

The Office of the Secretary of State certified results of a hand recount on Wednesday, giving King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove a 49-vote edge over Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for the second-place finish in last month’s primary to face former Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler in the Nov. 5 general election.

That followed all 39 counties conducting a hand recount of primary ballots following the initial machine count that maintained Upthegrove’s razor-thin margin.

Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh texted The Center Square a copy of the Thursday afternoon filing in Snohomish County Superior Court challenging King County’s method of curing ballots ahead of the initial certification of ballots from the primary.

Curing of ballots involves party officials contacting voters whose ballots were rejected for signature issues or other ballot irregularities. 

The complaint filed against King County and Director of Elections Julie Wise alleges that “Democracy Live, a private for profit third party company, operates the OmniBallot website where King County voters are automatically directed to cure their ballot affidavit signatures online.”

The legal challenge contends those ballots were illegally cured and should not have been included in King County’s final election tally.

The court filing reads, “If the ballots illegally cured using the OmniBallot system had not been included in King County’s final elections tally, there is less than a one in a billion chance that Dave Upthegrove would be in the top two candidates moving onto the general election in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands.”

The challenge cites the portion of the Revised Code of Washington that requires “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 voters ballot.”

The legal challenge concludes as follows: “Plaintiff prays for the following relief. 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).”

This is a developing story. 

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.

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