Can people check whether you voted for Harris or Trump? Here’s info you can see in WA

BELLINGHAM – How you vote in this year’s election is private, but have you wondered if family and friends can track if you’ve cast your ballot at all?

An online search tool called DidMyFriendsVote.org lets you enter a person’s name, age range, city and state of residence to search voting history. It will then tell you whether or not they voted in each election dating back to 2016, and through the current election for places that have early or mail-in voting. The results do not show any registered political affiliation or details of voting choices.

But is that legal, and are there more up-to-date or reliable ways to find that information?

WA lets you see who has voted

Not only is it legal to disclose whether or not someone has voted in Washington, state law requires county and state officials to make a list of registered voters available to the public.

You can find information on each person who has cast a ballot in this year’s election on the Secretary of State’s ballot status report page. Data for all of Washington state is available, but it can also be broken down by county. It includes each voter’s name, county, gender, ballot status and the location where they cast their ballot. Voter addresses are available as well, except for those participating in the state’s address confidentiality program.

Voter data from previous elections is available, too. You can fill out a form on the Secretary of State’s website to request registration information for a specific county or the state as a whole. While this doesn’t include data on the ongoing election, it will tell you which elections each registered voter has cast a ballot in for each of the past four years.

The Secretary of State’s office screens for anything they deem to be an obvious sham request. Once they’ve screened your request, assuming you pass, you’ll be sent a spreadsheet that includes each voter’s name, county, registration status and the date that their last ballot was cast, among other fields.

State law also requires each Washington county to maintain a list of registered voters and returned ballots in their county offices.

Are there limits on Washington voter registration data?

While the name, age and address of registered voters is considered public information, some steps are still in place to ensure voter privacy.

Public records don’t include which candidates and ballot measures you voted for. In fact, according to the Secretary of State’s office, ballots are separated from their envelopes before they’re counted as an extra precaution against disclosing how someone voted.

The name of the state agency or office where you registered to vote and any information regarding future voters aren’t available to the public. State law also holds that your social security number and any documentation used to prove your identity, age or address are exempt from public disclosure laws, meaning they’re not included in the publicly available list of registered voters.

There are also limits to what you can do with this data.

You aren’t allowed to use voter registration data for any commercial purpose. That includes advertising or offering payment for any property, good or service. Doing so is considered a class C felony.

Using voter data to deliver political advertisements or solicitations, however, is legal.

Each person issued voter registration data also has to take “reasonable precautions” to make sure it’s not used for commercial purposes.