This post first appeared on All Things Politics and is republished with permission.
Guest post by Bill Bruch
Sept 5, 2024, the Washington State Republican Party (WAGOP) and its lawyer Joel Ard filed a lawsuit claiming that the ballots “cured” by King County appear invalid, after using the OmniBallot system in hand recounts for the second position in August. 6, 2024, WA Commissioner of State Basic Elections Public Land Competition.
Thanks to WAGOP and Mr. Ard for doing this. Voters should be thankful and encouraged that WAGOP is working to strengthen and improve our elections.
WA is an all-mail-in state and when a voter forgets to sign the envelope containing the ballot or when the signature on the envelope does not match the record, “ballot curing” is necessary. This is the process of informing the voter to correct/correct the signature, so that the vote is counted, according to WAC 434-261-053.
In the lawsuit, WAGOP said King County illegally used an online tool that helps voters fix problems with ballots, and it affected the results of the statewide primary race for Public Lands Commissioner. The lawsuit also alleges that King County Elections Director Julie Wise did not ensure that voter information submitted through the app had adequate privacy and security protections because the tool was operated by a private company.
WAGOP claims Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson would have defeated Democrat Dave Upthegrove in the primary race if the application hadn’t been used. The party wants votes “cured” through the app to be invalid.
Elections in King County, which controls 17 of the 49 State Legislative Districts, are contracted to a left-wing third-party company, “Direct Democracy.” Democracy Live operates the OmniBallot voting system, which uses an online web/mobile application vote management program for Primary Elections.
According to the complaint, King County counted 2,092 signatures of affidavits that were illegally “cured” in violation of RCW 29A.60.164(4) through the OmniBallot Live Democracy voting system in the Election. If these 2,092 votes were not counted, then Upthegrove has a less than one in a billion chance of finishing ahead of Pederson for second place in the race.
After the official state recount was certified on September 4, 2024, the voting results changed slightly but still had Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Dave Upthegrove as the top two in November’s general election.
The recount showed a 49-vote margin separating runner-up Upthegrove from Pederson, who finished third in the contest. Before the recount, the initial margin was at 51 votes with more than 1.9 million votes counted. After combining the amended results certified by each of the county’s 39 canvassing boards, Upthegrove received four votes and Pederson received six votes.
“Overvotes” – “undervotes” and “write-in” votes were also identified during the manual recount, which helped lead to many minor changes in the overall change in the total vote for seven candidates in most of all WA State’s 39 districts.
Democracy Live’s OmniBallot platform is a web-based system for blank ballot delivery, ballot marking, and online voting.
Democracy Live is a Seattle-based company that sells systems that provide electronic blank ballot delivery systems, remotely accessible ballot marking systems, and complete internet voting systems.
FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT FEDERAL CERTIFICATION: The June 2021 report states, Democracy Live’s false and untrue statements are not limited to claims about the security of the system. In a press release issued Nov 2019, Democracy Live wrote: “Seattle-based Democracy Live has been awarded full certification of the election industry’s first self-accessible voting device… -off-the-shelf voting equipment that has been reviewed and approved by a testing laboratory independent EAC approved.
The press release appears to boast that the OmniBallot tablet was awarded federal certification by the EAC. However, OmniBallot was never granted EAC certification. Democracy Live is not a registered manufacturer of the EAC testing and certification program, a prerequisite for voting system vendors who wish to achieve EAC certification. These false marketing claims are so extreme that the EAC took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release stating directly that the EAC has not yet certified the online voting system.
FALSE CLAIMS OF SECURITY: There is a widespread consensus among computer scientists and national security experts that the online transmission of selected ballots cannot be secured.
Other reports say OmniBallot can be used to mark ballots to be printed and returned in the mail, the software sending voter identities and ballot preferences to Live Democracy, an unnecessary risk that endangers voters and secret ballots.
The Web Application relies on a number of third parties to perform its services. The app runs JavaScript loaded from Amazon, Google and Cloudflare, making all three companies, as well as Live Democracy itself, potential points of compromise for the election system.
Also, Democracy Live can receive sensitive personal information, including voter IDs, voter preferences, signature preferences and in some cases, even browser fingerprints, all of which can be used for malicious purposes.
Note: On April 9, 2020, more than 60 election scientists and experts signed a letter to the governor, secretary of state and director of state elections asking them not to allow the use of internet voting systems.
Given the well-established risks of internet voting, it is hard to believe that anyone would use an insecure web application that is vulnerable to manipulation and hacking for ANY type of voting.
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Chair, WSRP Executive Board Member, 4-Term Skagit County GOP Chair, Citizen Journalist, Blogger, Business Owner, “2021 Citizen Activist of the Year” award by the Olympic Conference, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Board Member, and WA State 2016 and 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate.