Watching the floor vote on SB 6362 last night was rather encouraging. Although the bill that passed out of the Senate was seriously flawed, Rep. Toby Nixon's 7 amendments transformed the bill into positive legislation. This is one of the few election reform measures of the biennium that genuinely improves the integrity of our elections process. It's also encouraging that it had overwhelming support from both parties. The bill rationalizes some of the unclear and impractical provisions in the existing registration and challenge statutes that have led to confusion and mistrust on all sides. It addresses the Democrats' concern of preventing frivolous registration challenges by outlining specific standards of due diligence. While some of the requirements for due diligence might be overkill in some cases, they're not unduly burdensome. Had this bill been the law last year, we would have avoided the fiasco that came out of the King County GOP's registration challenges -- the erroneous challenges would not have been filed in the first place; and there would have been clearer guidelines for the canvassing board to toss out the hundreds of flagrantly bogus mailbox registrations which they let stand.

Of course, the devil is in how this would actually be implemented by the county auditors and the canvassing boards. And experience with the new provisions may dictate additional changes in the future. But this is probably the best bipartisan bill on the subject that we could expect. The next step is to ensure that the Senate concurs with the House amendments. Much credit is due to Rep. Nixon for not only proposing the amendments, but working with the Democrats to form consensus. Just as much credit is due to the Democrats, particularly Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Rep. Kathy Haigh, for modifying their earlier positions and recognizing the amended bill as a win for all of us.

The following is Nixon's summary of what the bill accomplishes --

SB 6362 requires challenge filings to be posted on the auditor’s web site, and anyone who subscribes to be notified of new challenges. (This is a considerable improvement over the underlying bill, which inserted the political parties into the process by requiring challengers to provide notice directly to the parties).

It defines “traditional address” and “non-traditional address”, requires that a non-traditional address cannot be used if one has a traditional address, eliminates the ability to register at a public building, requires that the non-traditional address identify the residence of the voter sufficient to assign them to the proper precinct and verify that they reside there, and clarifies that mailing addresses are only for mailing purposes and not precinct assignment or qualifying to vote.

It clarifies the circumstances under which a voter’s right to vote may be challenged: felon whose voting rights have not been restored, judicially declared ineligible to vote due to mental incompetence, not a resident of the state, not 18 years of age, or not a citizen.

It establishes that someone’s right to vote can be challenged on the basis of not residing at their declared address, even if you don’t know where they actually live, if due diligence is first used to try to locate where the voter actually lives by a personal visit, certified letter, checking directories, checking the voter database, and checking property records. (Current law requires the challenger to provide the correct address of the challenged voter, which can be impossible).

Clarifies that allegations in a challenge must be based on personal knowledge or due diligence by the person filing the challenge, and not unsupported allegations or allegations by anonymous third parties.

Specifies that challenges to voters who register to vote less than 60 days before the election must be filed not less than 10 days before the election, but that there will always be at least 10 days to file a challenge to a last-minute registration (from the date the voter is added to the voter roll). Challenges to voters who registered more than 60 days before the election must be filed at least 45 days before the election. Challenges files later than these deadlines cannot affect the current election, but are stayed until after the election and can affect the next election. Challenges also can’t be effective if they are made after the voter’s ballot is already received.

Requires the auditor and secretary of state to provide a preprinted challenge form, and also allows challenges to be submitted that have been printed from an official electronic challenge form document template provided by the auditor or secretary that is printed out and properly signed by the challenger.

Clarifies the process the auditor follows to notify the voter of the challenge, schedule a challenge hearing, timelines and methods for responses, how the challenge is resolved if either the challenger or challenged voter, or both, don’t appear, etc.

There are some additional things I would have liked it have done, but that we couldn’t fit within the title (which was limited to challenges). Specifically, we also want to create a voter database maintenance process that allows citizens to inform the auditor of errors in the database that don’t actually rise to the level of challenging a voter’s right to vote, such as duplicate registrations, incomplete registration information, typographical errors, etc. Currently, there is no statutory requirement that auditors respond to such information, although most do, and the challenge process is too heavyweight and inappropriate for such issues. We also need to work on the issue of registration of voters who have no physical residence in Washington but consider Washington to be home while they are out of state on business, as students, or in the military, or while they travel extensively. I have a commitment from the Secretary of State, the auditors, and the other caucus to cooperate on such a bill next year, and I feel very confident that we will get a good consensus bill.

In general, SB 6362 consolidates and clarifies the overall challenge statute, and gives us a workable challenge system that won’t have the confusion that existed in King County in 2005. A week ago, I had no agreement on any of these amendments. Today, through a lot of hard work and negotiation, we passed all of them. Now, we need to secure concurrence in the Senate!