Spin Control: Initiative restrictions prompt parties to trade arguments

A recent legislative proposal to place tougher rules on gathering and verifying initiative petitions suggests that one’s position on key elements of Washington’s democratic processes can be somewhat malleable.

If the question is over registering to vote or casting ballots, Republicans are more likely to be suspicious of motives and want more restrictions to keep people off the rolls and away from the polls. If the question involves formally petitioning one’s government to get something done, Democrats are more likely to be suspicious of motives and want more restrictions on the names on the petitions and the people who collect them.

Senate Democrats proposed and moved through the initial legislative hurdles a bill that they insist is a good government fix to the state’s initiative process. People who sign an initiative would have to provide their registered address, something other states do, on top of the current requirement of a valid signature that would be checked in the verification process. Signature gatherers would have to sign a statement that to the best of their knowledge the information on the petition is correct and could face criminal consequences if it is later found not to be.

At least one impetus for such changes is the mother lode of conservative initiatives sponsored by Let’s Go Washington, sent to the Legislature last year with the financial backing of hedge fund manager Brian Heywood.

Republicans oppose the bill as an unnecessary solution in search of a problem because cases of signature fraud are exceedingly rare in the state’s long history of initiatives. The current affirmation on petitions, that says signers acknowledge they are registered voters who only sign once, is sufficient to deter fraud. Enforcing the address rule could add significant costs to the verification process while the threat of penalties could keep potential signature gatherers – some of whom are volunteers working for a cause they support – from participating in a democratic process. If the signature gatherer fails to sign the affirmation, valid signatures on the petition wouldn’t be counted.

There are good points to argue on both sides. People interested in the elements of democracy might have heard similar points raised in the past on bills surrounding Washington’s voter registration and election laws. But with each side using a version of the other’s argument.

Republicans, who have pushed for tougher registration and voting laws to avoid election fraud, have questioned the sufficiency of the affirmation of eligibility to vote a person signs when registering – and the affirmation a voter signs on the back of their envelope – to deter noncitizens and bad actors from messing with our elections. Some also have proposed going back to poll-site voting as a way to avoid voter fraud.

Democrats traditionally have responded that the affirmation is enough to safeguard registration rolls, particularly among noncitizens who are unlikely to risk running afoul of the law by registering to vote. Proven election fraud overall is extremely rare, and in numbers so small that it wouldn’t even have changed the outcome of Washington’s closest statewide race, the 2004 gubernatorial election. Switching back to poll-site voting would be expensive and disadvantage people who aren’t able to go someplace to cast a ballot during a 13-hour period on a single day.

On both points, a bipartisan voice of reason is found in the Secretary of State office, which oversees Washington elections. For decades, former Republican secretaries Ralph Reed and Kim Wyman, and now Democrat Steve Hobbs, have defended the state’s registration and elections processes as secure. At recent legislative hearings, Hobbs argued the current system of matching signatures works well and the changes could generate lawsuits, while Reed said the changes could “gut” the initiative process, which is part of the state’s political culture.

Concerns over the proposal’s advisability and constitutionality did not deter the Senate State Government Committee, which passed the bill on a party-line vote after its initial hearing. The $1.2 million price tag for the extra staff to verify voter addresses, however, may have derailed it. After holding its own hearing last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which is trying to stem red ink in the 2025-27 budget, didn’t send the bill to the full Senate before a key deadline passed on Friday.

While the proposal can’t be labeled as dead, it is, like hundreds of other bills that failed to meet that deadline, at least on life support. It will need special parliamentary measures to be revived.

Should that happen, legislators might want to consider that even when initiatives ride a river of cash to validation – more than $6 million was spent to get signatures for the six Let’s Go Washington initiatives to the Legislature – other steps in the process guard the state and its voters.

After all, legislators passed three of those initiatives, so they presumably had some merit. The other three went on the ballot, and were soundly rejected by voters.