Legislature considering several voting measures for Washington

The Washington Legislature is considering several voting measures this year.

Among them are the following:

Senate Bill 5584 – Implementing ranked-choice voting for some elections.

The bill was passed out of the Senate State Government and Elections committee on Jan. 26. If passed, it would allow certain jurisdictions to adopt ranked-choice voting for elections of their choosing. The bill was referred to the Senate Ways & Means committee and is awaiting a committee hearing.

Senate Bill 5636 – Automatic voter registration at the Department of Licensing.

A proposal in the Senate would extend automatic voter registration to any applicant for a driver’s license, learner permit and identification card at the Department of Licensing who meets the standards for voter registration. Currently, only applicants for enhanced driver’s licenses and identification cards are automatically registered to vote. Qualified applicants for the state’s health benefits exchange would also be automatically registered to vote. Individuals can opt out of automatic registration or contact their county auditor to unregister at a later date.

The bill passed out of the Senate State Government and Elections committee on Jan. 26 and was heard in the Senate Transportation committee on Monday. A vote in the Senate Transportation committee is scheduled for Thursday.

Senate Bill 5679 – Voter confidence: surveying signatures and providing data.

Another proposal in the Senate would require the Washington State Patrol to conduct a survey on the accuracy of 5,000-10,000 signatures located on ballot envelopes returned for the 2022 general election. It would also require the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to produce an annual report on referred and prosecuted cases of election law violations. The Secretary of State would be required to provide county auditors access to databases with death and court records for the purpose of maintaining voter registration rolls.

The bill was heard in the Senate State Government and Elections Committee on Friday. It is awaiting a committee vote.

House Bill 1727 – Eliminating odd-year elections.

A House proposal would eliminate all elections on odd-numbered years with the exception of certain special, recall or utility district elections.

The bill was passed out of the House State Government and Tribal Relations committee on Jan. 26. It is awaiting action in the House Rules committee.

House Bill 1953 – Exempting information from return envelopes from public disclosure.

This house proposal would exempt sensitive voter information found on ballot return envelopes, ballot declarations and signature correction forms from public disclosure. According to Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton, thousands of voter signatures, phone numbers and email addresses all go unredacted when an individual makes a public records request for ballot images collected by county auditor offices.

The bill was passed out of the House State Government and Tribal Relations committee on Jan. 27.

It is awaiting action in the House Rules committee.

House Bill 1453 – Rectifying information on state and local voter pamphlets.

This House proposal would create consistency across the requirements for candidate statements in local and statewide voters pamphlets.

Pamphlets published by the Secretary of State have different standards than pamphlets published by local county auditors.

The differences in standards have resulted in candidates saying different things in different pamphlets, Dalton said.

The bill was passed out of the House on Jan. 26 and was referred to the Senate State Government and Elections committee where it is awaiting a hearing.