Published May 2005

State's broken election
process needs mending

Bob Williams probably gave a lot of his Marysville breakfast audience indigestion last month. Not Williams personally, of course, but his topic — the sad, pitiful condition of Washington state’s election process.

Williams, president and senior research fellow of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit public policy research and education institute in Olympia, came to town recently at the invitation of Snohomish County Council Vice-chair John Koster.

Addressing Koster’s Business Roundtable breakfast meeting at the Best Western Tulalip Inn, Williams said he expects his group’s recent independent report on the November 2004 election, the ”Voter Integrity Project,” to trigger “a call for a federal grand jury investigation and a call for punishment of those who broke the law.”

He also announced formation of a voters’ rights group, Grassroots Washington, with the goal of reforming the whole mess and restoring integrity and the public’s trust in the election system. The group plans to insist that the Legislature force implementation and enforcement of existing federal and state election laws and administrative rules, as well as pushing for election reforms prior to any potential revote.

The new group wants the state to conduct a totally new registration of voters, requiring people to use their legal name, show proof of citizenship and a birth certificate. Since that was accomplished with millions of citizens in war-torn Iraq in only 45 days, he rightly thinks it should be feasible for Washington state government to do the same. Plus, voters also would be required to provide photo and signature identification at the polls before they could vote.

As if that wasn’t enough, Grassroots Washington wants to force election officials at the state and local levels to implement and enforce federal and state election laws passed in 2002-03, laws that were largely ignored.

Is Williams angry? Yes. Does he feel cheated of his voting rights? Of course. Does he think state officials will voluntarily do his group’s bidding? Of course not. That’s why he uses terms like “force” in talking about implementing necessary reforms.

This nation’s husbands, wives, sons and daughters in today’s armed forces are fighting, even giving their lives, to protect America’s basic freedoms, among them the right to vote and to expect fair and honest elections. How can any politician or political party not support election process reform in Washington state? Unless they don’t really care about the people’s rights, or don’t care to know for sure that they won their own political office honestly.

Am I angry, too? You bet I am. Election reform would protect not only the integrity of the process and the honesty of the results but it also would benefit both major political parties — Democrats and Republicans.

As Williams’ Evergreen Freedom Foundation literature reminds us, “Close enough for government work” isn’t good enough, especially for elections. When King County Executive Ron Sims made his now infamous assessment that the county election office “had an accuracy rate that any bank would envy,” Williams said, “he proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he has never been a banker.”

After an election involving more ballots than registered voters, voting by felons and cemetery residents, the discovery of scores of uncounted ballots after certification of the election and the counting of ballots “enhanced” by helpful election officials, it’s no wonder citizens have lost confidence in the integrity of the state’s voting process, as the polls have revealed.

For more information about the “Voter Integrity Project” and Grassroots Washington membership, visit the Evergreen Freedom Foundation Web site at www.effwa.org. Give your support in any way you can to help resolve these injustices.

Or would you rather just suffer more indigestion every time you think about the shameful state of our state’s election process?

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