Editorial: Hobbs’ work has built on state’s election security

By The Herald Editorial Board

Put simply, the work of all elected positions in the state hinges on the careful administration of the secretary of state’s office.

The secretary of state is Washington’s chief elections officer, responsible for supervising state and local elections and working with 39 county auditor’s offices running those elections, certifying results and producing the state voters guide. The position in recent years has required efforts to encourage voter registration and turnout, adopt new technologies and policies to support that work and bolster the security of voting infrastructure and practices.

The office also is responsible for running the state library and related programs in communities and safeguarding and providing access to historical records and collections; registering and licensing corporations, partnerships and trademarks; registering charities and nonprofits; serving as chairman of the state Productivity Board; and administering the address confidentiality program for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.

The current secretary of state, Steve Hobbs, was appointed to the position in 2021, after Kim Wyman, the last Republican to hold a statewide office on the West Coast, was appointed to a federal elections post by the Biden administration. Hobbs ran and won election to complete the term in 2022 and now seeks his first full four-year term in office.

Prior to his appointment to secretary of state, Hobbs, a Lake Stevens resident, served as a state senator representing the 44th Legislative District. Hobbs has three decades of service in the U.S. Army and National Guard, including deployment to Kosovo and Iraq. Hobbs earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington.

Hobbs is challenged by Dale Whitaker, who runs a tax practice in Spokane and is certified to represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service. Whitaker has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ashford University, now the University of Arizona Global Campus, an online program. Whitaker emigrated from the United Kingdom in 2008 and became a U.S. citizen in 2015.

Both candidates were interviewed separately by the editorial board.

Whitaker, drawing on his professional and business experience, said he wants to address concerns for election transparency and the office’s efficiency, noting that Hobbs has increased the size of its staff by 30 percent.

Whitaker’s specific concerns regarding Hobbs’ management includes a decision to end a 30-day requirement for voters to establish residency; a no-bid contract Hobbs awarded to a firm to monitor for misinformation and disinformation on social media; and what he sees as lax “chain of custody” for ballots, noting the discovery of 26 unmarked ballots found this April on the side of a road in Spokane.

(Media reports showed the ballots had been talen from personal mail boxes after delivery by the postal service, then dumped. Unmarked and unsigned by voters, the ballots did not represent a significant problem with “chain of custody” for actual votes; only a hassle for voters who had to replace their ballots before a special election.)

Whitaker also said he hopes to bring back in-person voting as an option for voters. While voters have the option of marking their ballot at their county auditor’s office, Whitaker says he’s heard from people who want a return of local polling stations.

Whitaker said he doesn’t believe that many of the initiatives undertaken by Hobbs — such as the contract with a British AI company to monitor social media for false claims — has resulted in increased confidence in the state’s elections.

“When he took office, it was 35 percent of the people in Washington state didn’t trust the elections process, and I question whether the correct way to combat that distrust is to surveil the constituents,” he said. “The way to sow trust and to allow those people to see that there aren’t problems is you got to open your doors to them, and you got to show them the processes and procedures.”

Hobbs defends those and other initiatives, noting the growing threat of disinformation and hacking from domestic and foreign fronts, noting recent alleged reports of Iran hacking into the Trump campaign and reports of planned Russian interference in presidential and other elections.

Speaking specifically to the contract to scan social media accounts, “I am seeing it through the cyber attacks, misinformation campaigns, disinformation campaigns, and we’re trying to stay ahead of it,” he said. The information gathered, Hobbs said, doesn’t gather private data, but is used to spot trends to alert officials, media and others to disinformation campaigns, AI “deep fakes” and threats to election officials and others.

With a funding increase he won from lawmakers, Hobbs has hired the office’s own cyber technicians for its Security Operations Center.

Specific to deep fakes, Hobbs said he plans to seek state or federal legislation that would hold social media platforms responsible for addressing deep fakes in advertising that appear on those sites.

Hobbs, this election season, also had to deal with some attempted domestic gaming of elections and its fallout, when an opponent of Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is running for governor as a Democrat, recruited two other Bob Fergusons for the race, potentially causing confusion in the primary.

The incident played out in public when Hobbs — as required by law to assign places on the ballot by lot — released the ballot with the AG’s name third, after the other two Fergusons. Hobbs said he offered initially to find a way to identify all three Fergusons, perhaps by occupation or status as incumbent or challenger, but held that he could not change the order of names as they appeared on the ballot as Ferguson wanted.

The issue resolved when the other two Fergusons withdrew their candidacies after it was shown that filing for an office with a similar name to another candidate, if done with intent to mislead voters, is illegal under state law.

Hobbs, since taking office, moved quickly to build on his predecessor’s record of improving access to voting, assuring accuracy and transparency and increasing security for the election process in Washington state.

Hobbs, drawing on U.S. military and other cybersecurity resources, has — in less than a full term — improved the state’s election security measures, addressed issues of misinformation and disinformation that can sway elections and harm public confidence in elections; and moved to increase access and information to assure those eligible to vote can exercise that right.

Hobbs also has given necessary attention to his office’s other duties, strengthening the state’s library and archives, encouraging trade specific to Washington, supporting corporations and more.

Election integrity — public trust in how elections are administered — is a legitimate concern; and those process can always be improved and enhanced. But many of the most vocal critics of this and other states’ elections are those who persist in allegations of “stolen elections” and voter fraud for which no evidence — recognized by state or federal courts — has been produced to show deficiencies sufficient to sway election results.

Voters, two years ago, confirmed the decision to appoint Hobbs as Wyman’s replacement. They can again have that confidence to return him to a full four-year term.

Correction: The above editorial has been corrected to remove an employment reference for candidate Dale Whitaker. Though listed in the state voters guide, Whitaker is no longer employed with a gold investment firm.