WA GOP file lawsuit to challenge public lands commissioner results

The primary race for public lands commissioner in Washington may not be over quite yet after all.

That's because the Washington State Republican Party is suing the King County elections director. A newly filed lawsuit claims the county illegally used an online tool that helped voters fix problems with their ballot, and that it affected the outcome in the primary race for public lands commissioner.

The state GOP alleges that King County Elections Director Julie Wise did not ensure that voter information transmitted over the app had adequate privacy and security protections because the tool is operated by a private company .

The party claims Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson would have defeated Democrat Dave Upthegrove in the primary race if the app hadn’t been used. The party wants the votes that were “cured” through the app to be invalidated.

“Curing” is the process of allowing voters to still have their vote counted by fixing problems with their ballot – typically due to a signature that doesn’t match the one state officials have on file or is missing from a voters’ ballot.

While one Republican, former congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, has already locked up a position on the fall ballot, the state GOP threw its support behind Pederson in the primary race.

The lawsuit comes one day after state officials certified the results of a hand recount in the race that was prompted by an historically close margin. As the results remained too close to call last month, the Pederson and Upthegrove campaigns worked to help voters cure their ballots before the initial results were certified.

Those initial results showed Upthegrove won the second slot on the November ballot by just 51 votes over Pederson. The hand recount showed Pederson narrowly losing to Upthegrove by 49 votes.

Ahead of the certification of the recount, Pederson initially shared a statement thanking her supporters and conceding the race, only to rescind the statement hours later.

In a statement, Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad called the lawsuit from the Republican party “sad and predictable.”

The lawsuit was filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.

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