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Contacts:
Bremerton, WA. Wednesday, September 29. In what may be the first of many lawsuits filed in Washington State this election season, the Libertarian Party of Washington State filed a suit yesterday against the Secretary of State claiming, in part, that the use of federally uncertified software on the voting machines in six Washington Counties may have hurt their opportunity to get candidates on the ballot in November. The voting systems in 6 western Washington Counties (King, Pierce, Snohomish, Chelan, Kitsap, and Klickitat) have not been inspected or tested by Federal Independent Testing Authorities as has been required previously by state election law and administrative code. The Secretary of State changed the administrative code to allow this new software to be used with “provisional” certification. “Only manual audits can confirm that this uninspected software is counting correctly," stated John Gideon, Information Manager for VotersUnite! "Audits would have been a good safeguard for the primary, and they are even more important in November to protect the State from massive lawsuits." Though the Washington State Elections Office admitted to the State Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee last Tuesday that they allowed this software to be installed for the fall elections, no manual audits were done after the primary election. Members of the press are invited to visit the website, created by VotersUnite! and Concerned Citizens for Democratic Integrity in King County to inform the public about Washington's current use of election software without Federal certification and advocate for some assurance of the accuracy of November election results. (http://www.electionintegrity.com). The Libertarian Party's press release is available from their web site: (http://www.lpws.org/) VotersUnite! (https://www.votersunite.org) is a national non-partisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections. It focuses on distributing well-researched information to elections officials, elected officials, the media, and the public; as well as providing activists with information they need to work toward transparent elections in their communities. |