Campaign spending, charges abound in contest for secretary of state

By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Neither Sam Reed nor Laura Ruderman is expected to lose anything in tomorrow's primary election, each being the only nominee of their respective parties for the secretary of state's job in an election that now requires voters to pick candidates only from within party slates.

You wouldn't know it from the way they're picking at each other already and the amount of money they've raised and are spending.

Republican Reed, 63, is completing his first four-year term in the office, which oversees elections, produces voter pamphlets, licenses corporations and registers solicitors for charities. He's running for a second term saying he's done a good job and deserves another run. The job includes managing a $118 million, two-year budget and 285 employees. The annual salary is $101,000.

Democrat Ruderman, 33, a legislator and onetime Microsoft manager, has entered the race with a reputation for tough campaigning.

She won a state House seat six years ago in a traditionally Republican district. Now she's taking aim at Reed wherever she can, hoping that anger over loss of the state's "blanket" primary system and a strong Democratic showing in a presidential year can help her win the office.

Reed said that the court ruling that eliminated the blanket primary wasn't his doing and that he's made a special effort to get out the word about the change and get people registered to vote. But Ruderman said he hasn't shown enough leadership and hasn't acted in the interests of everyday people.

A third candidate, Libertarian Jacqueline Passey, is also on the ballot. Through an official of her campaign, she declined an interview for this story, citing the press of personal business.

Political analyst David Olson of the University of Washington said the Reed-Ruderman race could be more interesting this year than in previous elections because of voter anger over loss of the blanket primary, which allowed voters to cast ballots across party lines.

"For a position that's usually thought of as non-competitive, it'll be competitive," Olson said.

 
 
The biggest issues are the primary election and electronic voting.

Reed became embroiled in the state's primary election controversy after a federal court threw out the blanket system.

The Republican and Democratic parties initiated a lawsuit that resulted in the system being tossed, arguing that it interfered with the parties' right to their own candidates. Reed publicly supported the blanket primary and opposed the change. The state ended up with a system that limits voters to choosing between one party's candidates but keeps secret which party's ballot the voter picks.

Ruderman said she also supported retaining the blanket primary. But she criticized Reed's $1.7 million voter education program about the new primary system, saying it is confusing voters.

Ruderman also said Reed has dragged his feet on a new electronic voting system for the state by resisting attempts to include a paper-ballot verification system for it. She's critical of an electronic-voting bill Reed offered that she said didn't include a system that could be used as a paper record to resolve disputes. She noted that software for the new system, in use so far by two counties, hasn't been federally certified.

She and state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt note that Reed has had four elections directors during his first term the current one drawing retirement from an Olympia port director's job and having no experience in election management.

She blames Reed for a change in a voter-registration rule that would require mail delivery to addresses as a way of verifying them, even in cases of abused women trying to escape their abusers by keeping their address confidential.

The state Democratic Party is contributing $40,000 to Ruderman's campaign effort. Berendt said: "It shows we take this seriously and we intend to vigorously contest this seat because we think this office can be better managed."

Reed said he's been told he won't get any financial support from his own state party, though state GOP Chairman Chris Vance said the party may do so. "It depends on how much we raise" statewide, Vance said. "We haven't written checks to anybody yet. It has nothing to do with the blanket primary," an issue where Reed differed from his party. "We support Sam Reed 100 percent."

Reed said he was initially skeptical about paper backup ballots for electronic voting systems, fearing voters wouldn't make use of them or that they could be used to collect payoffs for votes. He said that before this year there were no machines available with the paper feature and he had to administratively authorize a system with a paper backup after an electronic-voting bill he offered died in the House Rules Committee, on which Ruderman sits.

"She claims she's in favor of this, and either (the bill's failure) means that she's not capable of getting her own party to support it, if it's such an important bill ... or it means she didn't want it to pass."

He said certification of the new system's software couldn't be done in time for the primary but will be completed by the November general election. He said he hasn't heard the complaints about lack of clarity in the new primary education advertisements but added that he did clarify a TV spot to mention the parties' lawsuit after voters flooded his office with calls demanding an explanation.

For the job, he said, "you would look for somebody who's had years of experience with running an organization. ... Neither of those two (Ruderman or Passey) have ever done anything in the field of elections or the other fields."

Passey, 26, the Libertarian candidate, describes herself on her Web site as a "budding economist, Avon lady, Libertarian politician and science fiction geek" and says she'll work to ensure "clean, fair and constitutional elections" if elected.

Reed and Ruderman, meanwhile, have raised and spent far more money this time than four years ago. Reed, as of mid-August, had raised more than $403,000 and spent $203,000, according to state Public Disclosure Commission records. Ruderman had raised $318,000 and spent $298,898. In 2002, Reed and his general election opponent, Don Bonker, raised a total of $452,242 and spent $427,054, according to the PDC.

Passey isn't regularly reporting contributions and expenses because she's using a system for candidates who receive and spend less than $3,000. A Passey campaign official said her contributions and spending were both "under $2,000" as of early this week.