Posted on 07/05/2024 1:03:24 PM PDT by george76
The state of Washington has effectively abolished its long-standing residency requirement for voter registration.
The decision, led by Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs (D) and Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D), is another attempt by Democrats to cheat on the presidential election.
The Center Square reports that through agency rulemaking, Hobbs’ office has removed a provision that has been a part of Washington’s electoral framework since the state’s original 1889 Constitution.
This move follows a consent decree earlier this year, settling a 2023 lawsuit that claimed the residency requirement violated federal law, due to a 2018 state law.
Article VI, Section 1 of the Washington Constitution mandated that a person must be a resident of the state for 30 days before the election to register to vote.
However, the Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans filed a lawsuit in November 2023, arguing that this requirement was in violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, which prohibits residency requirements for federal elections.
The lawsuit claimed that this “pre-election durational residency requirement” — which voters must attest to satisfying on voter registration forms — “is longer than the registration deadline and…therefore prevents voters who could otherwise lawfully register and cast ballots from doing so just because they moved into the state, county or precinct too recently.”
The plaintiff contends that Washington’s durational residency requirement disenfranchises voters who move to the state or within the state (to a new county or precinct) fewer than 30 days before Election Day.
As a result, these individuals are barred from voting in the upcoming election and cannot elect state or local officials who would represent their current residence. This regulation is crucial for maintaining the fairness of our elections and preventing voter fraud.
In response, the state Legislature passed Senate Bill 6021 in 2018, allowing voters to register as late as 8 p.m. on Election Day.
“Voter registrations submitted electronically or through the mail must be received eight days before an election for a person to be eligible to participate in that election. Voter registrations may be submitted in-person at the county auditor’s office, county elections office, or another location designated by the county auditor up to 8:00 p.m. the day of the election for a person to participate in that election. A person may update their voter registration information up to 8:00 p.m. the day of the election.”
The consent decree now states that Washington residents who have lived at a particular address for longer than 30 days no longer need to meet any durational limits to vote, while new residents still had to meet the 30-day requirement.
This decree stipulated the removal of the residency requirement not just for federal elections, but for state elections as well, unless the state imposes a new durational registration requirement by August 1, according to The Center Square.
Despite the constitutional mandate, the Secretary of State’s rulemaking session on June 25 adopted the change, eliminating the need for voters to attest to a 30-day residency. An archival capture from June 13 revealed that the SOS voter registration form had already been updated to reflect this change.
More from The Center Square:
The change has drawn criticism from some political candidates, including Dale Whittaker running for SOS as a Republican. In a post on his campaign website he wrote that “the Consent Decree is a backroom deal that bypasses the state constitution, legislature, and the citizens of Washington.
This is a power-grab by activists using the courts and willing supplicants to make wholesale changes to state election practices hoping it flies under the radar of public and legal scrutiny. The 30-day residency requirement is a constitutional mandate that cannot be disregarded, and the recent court action does just that.”
Kittitas County Auditor Bryan Elliot wrote in an email to The Center Square that “my biggest concern is the rapid implementation of this change in a Presidential Election year.
Our offices are agile, but this action has the potential to create further mistrust of the voter registration system, especially when state law and the state constitution both still contain language that is contrary to the consent decree.”
“Additionally, there are more changes needed than just updating the voter registration form, which are already provided free of charge to counties,” he wrote further.
“We will also need to update and replace our confirmation and acknowledgement notices to voters which all contain references to the 30-day residency requirement. This will be an unbudgeted expense for my county that we will need to prioritize to comply with the ruling.”
So someone from Oregon can “move” to a hotel in Washington state and register to vote in Washington. After voting, they can move back to Oregon and then vote in Oregon as well.
This is one hell of a system. Joseph Stalin would be so envious of what goes for elections in the USA.
Seemingly every chance they get the Democrats are destroying the voter protection laws of this nation.
They are always making it easier to cheat.
Oh, this makes such good sense.
Clearly, we need to recruit at least 100,000 Republicans to sign up electronically to offset substantially those the Democrats will recruit. They can get that number just from kiosks set up in LA and San Francisco.
Who would have thought the saying vote early and vote often would be so applicable outside Chicago and Cook County.
Those miscreants also need to abolish residency requirements to attend their state colleges so that any student from anywhere can have the same tuition rates. How about getting a Washington State license even if one lives in another state? Open up a can of worms those demoRat hacks never considered.
Catholic Services, Lutheran Services (I believe they’re the two largest), and other NGOs that are supporting all these illegal aliens will pay in Hell for what they’re doing to our country, if they don’t repent!
In ‘22 WA-3 primaried out RINO Jaime Herrera Beutler.
RINO McCarthy didn’t support MAGA Joe Kent who lost by few hundred votes.
Prior WA-3 Clark CO area always Republican
Not a bad idea. If 20K people all showed up in Seattle voted out the weirdos it might send a message.
This changes NOTHING in WA elections. We have been giving drivers’ licenses to illegal sincev2010. The state legislature voted for statewide mail in voting in 2D11. Along with the drivers licenses, which were handed out on the basis of two bills in lieu of identification., the illegals were registered to vote through motor voter. Then GOTV and ballot harvesting, finished off Republicans in this state.
Now Inslee has been bragging about having brought 18,000 migrants to Seattle, but I think that number pales in comparison to the numbers that he has brought into other states. He used the Covid emergency funds, not to help#A residents, but to support the migrants. Now, he is going to register the new migrants to vote in the presidential election.
I hope that Republicans are ready to challenge the results of the WA election.
Interesting. How do we non-resident republicans get a mail in ballot sent to Massachuttes, NY, VT, CA, or other blue states?
Fine. I wonder if they’d send a ballot to me in Florida.
What about that warehouse that housed 1600 voters back in 2002? The one where Gregoire beat Rossi?
That woul d help but you have have to register to vote here first.
You have to register to vote in WA before you receive a ballot. So, you would cave to come twice, first to register, second to pick up the ballot at the address that you give.
If the state of Washington is so blue...
Then why does Deep State have to steal its elections...? 🤔
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