This is a KSPS PBS election special.

Incumbent Democrat Steve Hobbs meets challenger Julie Anderson This is the Washington Secretary of State debate.

Live from the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center on the campus of Gonzaga University.

Produced in cooperation with the Spokesman-Review and the League of Women Voters of Washington.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Secretary of State debate.

Thank you all for watching and for being here.

Today's debate is sponsored by the Spokesman Review's Northwest Passages Community Event Series.

The League of Women Voters, KSPS Public Television and Gonzaga University.

It is affiliated with the Washington State Debate Coalition.

I'm Laurel Demkovitch and I'm pleased to be here to moderate this debate between Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs.

Miss Anderson when the coin flip earlier to determine the order and she chose to go second as was just mentioned.

Before we get started, I want to remind the audience to please refrain from clapping or cheering or booing so we can get through as many questions as possible.

So let's get started.

There is no official opening statement, but I do want to start by asking a pretty broad question that focuses on both of your experiences.

You have both pointed to your experiences as being the most relevant for this job as Secretary of State.

Mr. Hobbs, you were appointed last year to serve and to fill Ken Weidman seat after serving as state senator, as well as decades in the National Guard.

Ms. Anderson, you have been Pierce County Auditor since 2009.

Why do each of you feel that you are the best for this position?

Mr. Hobbs, you have 90 seconds.

Thank you very much.

You know, I've dedicated myself to public service.

This was instilled in me by my mom, who immigrated this country pregnant with me, knowing no English.

We learned English together, watching Sesame Street.

It was the hard work and love of this country that inspired me to join the military at age 17, starting off as a private and raising for the right ranks as a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard during my 33 years of military experience.

I worked for the National Security Agency, assisted the security of elections in Kosovo and Iraq, and distributed nomination boxes in Iraq.

I was a graduate of Department of Defense Information School and currently a public affairs officer.

This makes me uniquely qualified to be your Secretary of State, taking on cyber and misinformation threats, as I have already done in this office.

Additionally, I've served 15 years in the state Senate forging bipartisan solutions, working across the aisle.

That's why I have many endorsements from Republicans, Democrats from various newspapers, including the association, Washington Business and the Walsh State Labor Council.

This office has evolved throughout the years.

Beyond the coordination of elections with our 39 county auditors, it's now about defending our elections from external and internal threats, from malign actors who are wanting to bring down our democracy.

You'll hear from me later in this debate, and hopefully you'll choose me to be your secretary of State.

Thank you, Mr. Hobbs.

Ms.. Anderson, you have 90 seconds.

Thank you.

My name is Julie Anderson.

I'm the nonpartisan, experienced candidate for secretary of state.

As you've already heard, I've been serving as the Pierce County auditor, nonpartisan Pierce County auditor for for over 12 years.

That means I've managed hundreds of elections, streamlined business licensing, and have protected and preserved and made accessible to you your public documents.

I have a national and state certifications and election administration.

I'm also a state certified public records officer.

It's been my deepest pleasure and honor to lead in statewide elections.

I'm endorsed by over 40 current and former election officials from across Washington state who are Republicans, Democrats and independents.

They're behind my campaign because they know that experience matters.

I'm running as a nonpartisan because polarization is tearing our country apart.

Our politics are broken, and we need to protect the Secretary of State's office from partizan influence.

Polarization is a destructive force and a distraction to the Secretary's duties.

I look forward to talking with you about my priorities to increase access to elections, increase transparency and security.

Thank you.

And thanks to the debate coalition for putting this on.

Thank you.

I do want to start with some election related questions, and we'll start with you, Miss Anderson, for this next one.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about how elections in Washington are conducted, and how would you address that if elected?

The biggest misconception?

We talk a lot about technology in elections, and I just want to remind everybody, it is still a very person centered, people centered business.

We rely on voters to be able to follow instructions to help us keep our lists clean We rely on hundreds of election workers to follow procedures and keep our elections safe.

And, of course, counting ballots is very much a manual process as well.

We live in a great state with a paper based vote by mail system, which means we have a great audit trail.

So I think the biggest misconception is how person centered election still is and what a manual job it still is, despite the advances in technology.

And that really goes to some of the misinformation and disinformation that we're experiencing in our community and around the United States.

And folks not necessarily understanding because they don' work in elections, what are tabulation systems do, how votes are counted, what a manual or a machine recount is?

And with my 12 years of experience, I really enjoy engaging the public in explaining those details.

And I think that's one of the only ways that we can really get through some of the misinformation.

We've got lots of folks out there that have real good faith questions.

There's deniers and there's doubters.

I like working with the doubters.

Thank you.

Mr. Hopes, your 90 seconds.

Yeah, thank you.

I think the biggest misconception is people just don't understand how elections are ran here in the state of Washington.

There was a king fi poll that showed 35% of Washingtonians.

So our own people here who don't trust our elections here in the state of Washington we've done a very good job of telling people how to vote and and put the ballot in the in the mail and put it in the drop box.

What we haven't done is a good job of telling people how our elections are ran in here.

And so what we have been doing in my office is we will you launch the vote with confidence campaign the talk about how elections are ran here the life cycle of the ballot for example, you've heard many times that dead people vote.

That's simply not true, that people can vote multiple times and not get cut.

That is simply not true.

You can talk to any county auditor and they found very many instances and where they have cut people, it's not a lot of people that get cut.

Also, the transparency people think that elections are hidden behind the wall.

In fact, I've heard candidates I'm sure on hasn't heard the same thing that people that think that you can't see what's going on.

And Anderson will let you go into our election center.

Any auditor, Vicki Dalton hearing in Spokane County will let you see the voting process going on, see the ballots come in, see them being counted.

And we don't do enough about that.

We don't tell you what's going on, which is why some of the distrust is happening.

Thank you.

And touching on misinformation, which you both have already mentioned after the 2020 election, there were a number of concerns that quickly spread about widespread fraud in results and a lot of misinformation about elections and vote by mail specifically.

So what specific actions or programs do you support to address misinformation regarding voter fraud and voter restrictions?

We'll start with you, Mr. Hobbs.

Yes, certainly.

And I just mentioned the fact that, unfortunately, people don't know how elections around here in the state of Washington.

So we launched the Vote with Confidence campaign.

We're also actively involving ourselves with the community and working with our 39 county orders.

Part of the vote with confidence is sending out press kits with them so that they can work with us and they can work with their own communications team to fit their county needs.

We also are going out to different communities.

They've set up a team to do outreach, mirroring what they d in King County with the with the trusted messenger program, trying to hire people that actually speak the language and understand the community and the culture.

We need to do more of that and to bend this curve of misinformation, this perception of elections in the state of Washington are somehow they don't have integrity.

And that's simply not true.

In fact, we're talking more about the process of vote law, which is a voter database, how it talks are different databases to ensure that if someone were to move to a different county and register there, we would know about it.

Again, elections shouldn't be hidden to anybody.

And we have done, unfortunately, a bad job of not telling you all how elections are end.

Again, I encourage all of you to go to your local county auditor, your election center, and witness the process yourself and tell a friend how our elections are secure, transparent here in the state of Washington.

Thank you.

Ms.. Anderson, you have 90 seconds.

Well, I think a successful approach is, first of all, not leading with partizan messages and not leading with ridicule.

Again, there's deniers and there's doubters.

For all of those doubters out there that we're trying to reach.

I really think that there's limited value in government talking at them.

Right.

I think that what we need in our community, in our country is more dialog.

And I'm going to need your help as a community doing that.

We're going to have to reach into community and find people where they're at who are interested in learning more.

And it's going to start with listening to what their doubts are and what they're based on, then providing some information and doing it in spaces where they're getting connected with their county auditor.

I, as Secretary of State, can put out information, but it's one way and I think that people who subscribe to government channels on social media is not the audience we're trying to reach.

Right.

So I want to make sure that we connect people at the local level with their county auditor so that when they're encountering a question or a problem, they can go right to the source.

And I will say that the Vote with Confidence campaign.

I've got to say, we didn't even have a chance to see that content and still it started being printed in our daily papers.

And that's not the kind of coordination and collaboration that we need.

Okay.

And for the next question, we'll start with you, Ms.. Anderson.

There has been talk for years of adding ranked choice voting in Washington, most recently with proposed legislation that would have given local jurisdictions the option to use ranked choice voting.

This election alone, there are a number of counties who are considering it and various initiatives.

You have said that you support that idea.

Mr. Hobbs, you've said that it's not necessarily the time to add ranked choice voting, but given the growing support for it and the likelihood that it could be adopted at some place or locally, how would you, as secretary of State, handle that new type of election, even if it's just at a local level?

Yeah, you're right.

I do support the local option Bill that's been kicking around in the state legislature for about six years now.

Ranked choice.

Voting is being used in 50 communities around the country, and it really isn't a matter of if.

It's a matter of when.

And you're right, it's going to be on the ballot in three counties this November I support ranked choice voting and this local option because I respect voters and I respect communities.

Some of the best innovations that we've had in America have been because we've respected this republic form of government with local control, where local communities can be laboratories of innovation and ranked choice.

Voting is not that much different than a woman's right to vote.

Being able to vote when you're turning 18 years ol or vote by mail, all things that were started at a local level.

And I tell you, when they were started as a local option, they had challenges and they weren't uniformly popular either.

So I respect communities and voters.

Thank you, Mr. Hobbs.

In 90 seconds.

Certainly.

And they are on the ballot in various places.

And, of course, as your secretary of state, I will honor that.

That's what they chose.

And I have to do it as part of my my legal duties as secretary of state.

But I don't like ranked choice voting.

And the reason I don't is because it disenfranchizes communities and leaves us vulnerable for misinformation.

Think about what's going on right now with our elections, what happened in January.

Six people have doubts over elections.

And now you want to have an election based upon an algorithm and the number of votes, and people just don't have the trust right now.

That's why now is not a good time to do it.

Also, I think about my mom who naturalized to this country when English is not her first language.

So think about all those newly naturalized citizens and all of a sudden you're asking to vote in a completely alien way.

And we don't even have the resources right now to provide voter guides statement to those naturalized citizens in the language that they understand.

I don't want to disenfranchize them.

And then I think about my son.

My middle child is a son with special needs.

He has cognitive disability.

He can vote in election by just voting for the person that he likes.

That is easy for him to do, but to sit down and have him go through ranked choice.

It is very difficult for him and he has a right to vote.

He is a US citizen and we have to think about those individuals as well So right now is not the best time to do ranked choice voting Thank you.

And we'll start with you, Mr. Hobbs.

For the next question, I want to ask a couple of questions about the archives which is another role that Secretary of State has, an the Secretary of State has responsibility for the certification, filing and preservation of public records through the State Archives.

What changes would you make to the system to allow for more transparency and access to records while also insurance ensuring the security of the archives?

Well, the one thing we have to do is rapidly do more.

Converting the records to digital.

We need to do that.

One thing I realized rather quickly is the amount of paper records that we need to convert so you can have access to the Internet so people can see it.

So what I've done is I visited many of the archives, including the one in Eastern Washington University in Cheney and I noticed that the equipment needs to be updated, larger scanners need to be done.

For example, some of our archive to Olympia to get them scanned.

So we're in the process of providing more larger scanners, more efficient scanners, and providing more people.

We were depleted during the last Great Recession and we didn't get those people back so that we can scan those records.

There's one thing that we've been working on.

Archives also that's great is we have very old records, including our state constitution.

And one thing I'd like to do as a traveling show is visiting the various schools and museums and the communities, bringing out our state constitution and all documents so that people can see it and see the history and understand the history of our great state.

Thank you, Anderson.

Well, as you can hear, the state archives has a legacy of being very paper based.

But turning paper documents into images by digitizing them isn't the future.

We've got a backlog.

We need to do that in order to preserve those documents.

But I'm going to be focused like a laser on modernizing the state archives.

We have a responsibility to preserve and make it accessible to each of you documents with permanent retention value that are created by local and state government.

And that's back from the territorial days all the way to this minute.

Think about what's happening in government right now.

We are producing at the state and local level more digitally native documents at a higher volume than you can imagine.

That means these are records that have never been a piece of paper.

And they're complex.

They're digital.

They're interactive.

Think about the redistricting pr Yes, it produced a paper map that was finally adopted.

But think about all the interactive versions of that ma that are important parts of that history.

Think about all the online meetings that local and state government is having right now.

That's online and digital with all of those chats, all of the attached documents.

Who's preserving those records for history and making them accessible to you so you can hold government accountable?

I will.

Thank you.

And I do want to ask a follow up question, and both of you will have 30 seconds to answer.

But you've mentioned the paper archives, and I've heard that they are currently running out of space.

So what, if elected, would your plans be to deal with that And we can start with you, Mr. Hobbs.

Certainly, as I said when I went to some of the archives building, some of them are running out of space, which is why we do need to quickly scan these and digitize our records.

And so that's what we've been working on.

Also, we are building a new state library in the Tumwater area, which will will give us some more room.

Luckily, as we move forward and different municipalities are moving to digital.

So it makes it easier going forward in the future.

Bu we have a lot of all documents that we need to convert.

Thank you.

You have 30 seconds.

I think the first thing I'm going to do is take a entire capital scan of all of the buildings under the responsibility of the secretary of state to find out what our space needs are, and then also look for opportunities for collaboration.

In addition, of course, to scanning the paper documents but will always need a safe place to keep those paper documents.

I'd like to collaborate with the museums, the other history societies that we already collaborate with to see if there isn't another local government that has the same needs.

Couldn't we partner together?

We will start with you for this next question.

The Secretary of State is also responsible for corporation, business and nonprofit registration.

Are there any changes that you would want to make to how registration currently works?

And if so, what would they be?

Good news.

Our corporations division is has got really good reputation and it's working pretty well for business.

Just ask anybody that tries to do business in California.

So we're doing pretty good.

What is a hot mess right now is the charities division.

The legislature made a change that took an effect this year.

And to implement those changes, the secretary of state's office had to change their computer system and basically it broke.

They're having to entirely replatforming.

That's not an issue.

The problem was with the way the incumbent managed that project.

He asked all of the charities in Washington State to submit all of their paperwork by hand on paper and then had employees hand enter that data into a separate system.

This created a 2 to 3 month backlog, which means that important charities that you and I rely on to do work in the community are showing up as delinquent on the state system, and some of them were even administratively dissolved.

This means that they can't get insurance, they can't get financing if they're building a new building, and there's absolutely no excuse for that, I would have handled that project entirely differently.

So I think by the time I get in office, I'm going to still have a little bit of cleanup to do.

Do you, Mr. Hopps, you have 90 seconds.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Yes, I did inherit the problem.

Unfortunately, you really had two options, or actually one option, which was to do something which was put do the paper option or do nothing and allow the buildup of these nonprofits to just accumulate, which we weren't going to do .

So we had to do that option.

And of course we are working on it and we believe that our site will be back online in November But it does take time.

But to do nothing is not an option.

One thing that we are doing in corporations, nonprofits and charities is we're going to create field field offices.

We haven't done that in the past because if you have a huge problem and you can't work it out on the phone and for example, we had a Vietnam veteran Marine who had was hard of hearing.

He was not Internet savvy.

We're trying to do a nonprofit, had a horrible time trying to communicate with us.

It happens across the state.

So we are actually going to open up field offices in various parts of the state so that we can service you, so we can be there for you.

And the idea is to have office hours on certain days.

Let's say we have an office in Spokane, and then on certain days they will actually travel to different communities like Cheney, because you shouldn't have these barriers to file you corporations or nonprofit.

Thank you.

And we'll start with you for this next question, Mr. Hobbs.

And switching back to elections.

Voter turnout in Washington is still low, despite a number of new laws that have expanded access to voting, such as same day registration and restoring voter rights to those convicted of a felony or adding drop boxes.

How do you encourage people to vote?

And if elected, what are some ideas that you have for increasing voter access in Washington?

Yeah, thank you very much.

There's two things.

Two ways we're going to approach it.

One is we are developing a team to go out to the various communities who are underrepresented, who don't usually go out to vote.

I talked to the tribe, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Tri-Cities, to go talk to them, perhaps teaming up with them, reaching out to their community in various communities, just like I had mentioned before with the Trusted Messenger program.

The other thing we need to do is get to our young people, encourage them to vote.

Getting getting them in the mindset to vote before they turn voting age.

One of the things that we have been leaning forward on and and working on developing this will be probably in the next two years is a mobile game app for young people.

So they can go on there and they can vote for maybe an imaginary character in a in a in a land, maybe get points or throw civics questions down to get them involved now so they're ready to go when they turn voting age.

And of course, we will continue with our vote with confidence initiative, which we will do next year.

The legislature has not done a very good job of giving the Secretary of State the resources and the counties the resources to help them increase voter turnout.

So I'm looking forward to doing that, working with our 39 counties to increas the voter turnout.

Thank you, Anderson.

Well, Washington State performs pretty well when we compare ourselves with the rest of the states in the United States for voter turnout.

But it sure is hard to have like a victory fist bump when you've got 20% turnout in a special election.

That's so important.

Job one is making sure that we're eliminating barriers to access.

And I. Washington state has exhausted the most obvious barriers, so it's pretty easy to participate.

But, you know, the one thing that is tested and true that turns a non voter to a voter is interpersonal communication.

It's having somebody ask you or share with you why the election is important.

It might be a candidate that doorbells.

It could be a neighbor, a coworker Or what happens at your kitchen table.

But what moves voters to lose nonvoters to be voters is interpersonal communication and community.

So again, what I'm proposing is to reach through community, and I'm going to need your help I'm launching the voice program, voter outreach and innovative civic engagement with really low barrier grants, similar to what we did in Pierce County very successfully with the 2020 census, combining philanthropic dollars with government dollars and making them easy to apply for to see what kind of innovative activities you come up with your teenagers come up with to get the vote out and have that interpersonal communication.

Thank you.

And we'll start with you for this next question And on the idea of turn out, the legislature, as well as some local jurisdictions have discussed the idea of moving elections in Washington to only even years.

Is that something that you support and why or why not?

Well, it's something that I'm worried about.

I do obviously want to increase turnout.

And this is an idea that could potentially increase turnout, but it does have some consequences that I think we should pay attention to.

And I would like to share with the state legislature.

Think about this.

Some of the misinformation and disinformation that we hear is about the integrity of our voting rolls and how accurate our mailing lists are.

If we start skipping elections and skip an entire year, that's four opportunities that I'm missing to send a ballot to a voter and then have either the national change of address report back to me or have it returned so that I can inactivate the voter So the more contact we have with voters, the cleaner our vote, the cleaner our mail lists are.

I'm also concerned about county budgets.

I think that there are some cash strapped counties that would say, Hey, man, you're only running elections every other year.

Do you really need all of these staff?

And I can see them whittling away at the budget.

And I'm also based on my experienced really concerned about keeping the wheels greased in those pending pistons firing because our employees need continuous practice of those procedures to run accurate elections.

So I'm worried about staff training.

I'm worried about money, and I'm worried about that mailing list.

Thank you, Mr. Hobbs.

Well, Julie and I are probably on the same sheet of music on that.

So she basically told you exactly what what I feel about it.

But there's also another aspect to that.

And it's this it's like during odd years, it's when the city council is when the mayor is from the drainage district, the cemetery district, the mosquito district, are able to come out and campaign and tell you who they are.

And they put out the yard signs they give you, let they go door to door.

Imagine if you will.

Now everybody is doing it.

You're going to bury those hard working city council members.

I'm talking about the ones from the small towns that don't don't have the resources, and they'll be covered up in this deluge of signs.

I'm sure you you've driven around and you've seen all these signs out there.

Imagine if you imagine now you're adding all the city council races, county council races and all these small little commissioner races.

You know, the great thing about our democracy is that we're represented down the lowest level.

And I think if you move everything to an even year, you're going to lose that.

The way that local elected officials, the city council members or school board members.

The way they connect is on those two year elections, so you actually get to know the So that's another reason why I'm against moving everything to even years.

Thank you.

Mr. Hobbs, we'll start with you.

The office of the Secretary of State is currently a partizan position, but the idea of making it partizan has been around for years.

You are running as a Democrat.

Ms.. Anderson, you're running as a nonpartisan.

There are some records have shown that years ago you have donated to a number of Democratic campaigns.

How do you think that the office would be different if it were nonpartisan?

And is that a proposal that you support?

Certainly.

You know, I don't mind if it's nonpartisan person or whatever.

That's that's not the point.

I think the point is who's in the office?

An old motto that we had in my infantry battalion when I served in Kosovo was deeds, not words.

Your actions speak louder, larger than your words or the letter next to your name when you're running for office.

The last three, four or five secretaries of state were all partizan and people voted for them and trusted them.

They're all Republicans and people trust them.

I trust them So I don't think it really matters.

I look at my record of working across the aisle in a bipartisan manner, crafting budgets very difficult in a bipartisan manner.

I've got endorsements from Republicans and Democrats, endorsements from the association Washington business in the Wash State Labor Council.

And those guys fight each other all the time.

It's really about building bridges, working and being able to work across the aisle and gain the trust.

So I can work in any environment, whether it's nonpartisan or partizan.

It it's really about the person that's in the office that matters.

Thank you, Miss Anderson.

Well, my opponent says that it doesn't matter and I couldn't disagree more.

I don't see we've been discussing a lot today people's distrust of government and how polarization is ripping our community apart.

I don't see how you can take a quarter of $1,000,000 from a political party.

I don't see how you can benefit from that political party running a disinformation campaign for your campaign's benefit and not realize that you're becoming part of the problem.

I'm running as a nonpartizan because I believe that the person that is running and overseeing Washington state's elections shouldn't be a part of a partizan operation.

It's like an umpire at home plate calling balls and strikes while wearing a team jersey.

It just doesn't make sense.

Third graders I talk to understand that.

And I think that it's very, very important if we're going to be rebuilding trust.

It is true that we've had partizan secretaries of state.

I was a big fan of Kim Wyman, sam reid.

Sam endorsed me.

But this will be the first time in Washington state history that voters have a choice where you can choose the experience that Sam and Kim had without the partizan strings attached.

Thank you.

And we'll start with you for this next question.

Both of you have mentioned throughout your campaigns the importance of working with county auditors and elections officials, especially when it comes to administering elections.

So what specifically would you do to work with the 39 county elections officials if elected?

Well, a lot would have to have done over the past 12 years.

I've served as the president of the Association of County Official County Auditors.

And during that time, we have undergone a lot of changes in Washington state elections, a suite of election laws from same day registration to 16 and 17 year old, preregistratio expansion of ballot drop boxes, lots of stuff, and pulling together a team because don't forget that in every one of these 39 counties is an independent elected official.

Some of them are Republican, some of them are Democrats, some of them are independent.

Rallying that group together for a common goal and making sure that the end result works for all of the individual communities is a real trick.

But it's something that I'm good at.

It's something that I enjoy.

I enjoy that kind of collaborative leadership.

And obviously, the county auditors think so, too.

They've endorsed me.

I think I've already told you that because they've experienced my leadership.

They know that I'm collaborative, a high communicator, and will work with them to solve problems.

They also know that I've got their back.

So I think good communication would be my top my my top response there and making sure that we understand that every county is different and we need solutions that work for every community.

Thank you, Mr. Hobbs.

Thank you.

You know, it's great that Kim mine was in before because we just carried on the tradition of communication with the county.

Not only do we go to the the meetings that they have, but we have meetings once a month with county honors, meetings every day during the election time with the counties And also we have meetings once a week during session to coordinate legislation and policy ideas.

But the one thing that I we need to do in this office and we continue to do and we have done is to answer the call when county auditors need help.

We had a misinformation campaign directed at what's called an Albertson's or a device that tracks data going from into a suspicious IP address.

Homeland Security requires counties to have this in case a suspicious IP address comes up.

We had this misinformation campaign directed at this Albert Spencer saying it was tied to George Soros through six or seven degrees of separation.

It's simply not true.

Two county orders came to our office asking for help, for talking points facts because they don't have the comm We had to convene a meeting of the various counties to help them push back on this false narrative that was happening that was threatening to remove these Albert sensors, because the political pressure that came from this basically a lie.

So we need to stay vigilant in our office.

So it's not just about meetings and communication.

That's great, but we have to answer the call and respond immediately, especially in this environment.

Thank you.

And I want to ask a question kind of related to Albert's answers, as you just mentioned.

And we'll start with you for this one.

In many counties, election officials have some autonomy over how elections are run.

In some cases, however, they may be limited to what they can do by other local officials, such as county commissioners, through the budget or shared IT systems.

For example, earlier this year, some local governments looked at eliminating security systems such as Albert Spencer's, based on misinformation.

Should county election officials have more authority over the needs of their offices And what would you propose to make that happen?

If so, because there was I couldn't hear.

There was a silence.

Your cell phones.

Yes, yes, please.

So in many counties, election officials have some autonomy over how elections are run.

In some cases, however, they might be limited to what they can do based on other local officials, such as county commissioners, through the budget or shared IT systems.

For example, earlier this year, some local governments looked at eliminating security systems such as Albert Spencer's based on some misinformation.

So should county elections officials have more authority over the needs of their offices And what would you propose to make that happen?

Well, certainly I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to take away the authority of these these counties that's part of our American democracy to allow counties to do what they need to do to run their government.

But I think there are things that we can do, legislative wise, to protect the order.

For instance, we could introduce legislation to put firewalls so they can't supplant monies that we give to counties.

Very.

You can talk to any county either.

They get very frustrated when, you know, money is supplanted when it's supposed to go to them.

And so that's something that we could do to help them out in terms of the security portion of it.

Right now, we're trying to do everything we can to convince counties to put their Albert Spencer back on.

One thing I didn't say was that one county Ferry County, unanimously voted to remove the Albert Spencer based upon the lie that was sent out.

And it's unfortunate, but we're going to continue to work on them, to have them put back the sensor back on, because less than 6 to 8 weeks later, we were notified by U.S. Cyber Command that six Russian IP addresses were identified where state and local governments were transmitting data to.

Now, we live in a in an environment where overseas actors want to cause us to turn on each other and try t penetrate our elections.

And that's why we have to stick together.

Luckily, our tabulation machines are not connected to the Internet, so you don't have to worry about that.

But I don't want I don't want to limit start limiting the authorities of county governments.

I think the locals would be very upset with that.

Thank you, Miss Anderson.

I think the system and the laws that we have in Washington state right now have struck the right balance.

And I like that the secretary is taking up the suggestion of Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall about creating firewalls to protect those county, those county budgets from being swept.

But I think that we have a good partnership and good standards in Washington State, and there's just enough discretion at the county level to be responsive to your communities.

So I think we're good.

Thank you.

Amin, we will start with you, Ms.. Anderson.

In recent months, counties have received a number of public records request that seek records pertaining to the 2020 general election results.

What measure can the state take to ensure that elections are transparent but at the same time preserving the secrecy of the ballot and individual privacy?

A number of records.

We've received a lot of records.

Request interest is very high and continues to be high.

And counties are doing a good job of responding to those record requests.

There's a couple of things that I would do as secretary of state is to help provide some leadership to take some of the weight off of the counties.

There are some documents that keep getting repetitively requested and where it's safe to do so.

I think that just posting those on the Internet so that people can self-serve and retrieve might be a step, might be a more efficient way to do things.

What I'm really concerned about, because I am a state certified records officer, is this combination of requests where.

For example, we've got requesters who have requested the manuals for our computer systems, and we've turned those over.

They've read the manuals.

And so they're making more and more specific requests for the data.

And the data that we release, combined with other records requests could be used together to compromise security of our election system.

So I am very interested in convening technologists, attorneys, records officers and election administrators to revisit what it is that we're releasing.

Thank you, Mr. Hobbs.

Thank you very much.

And this is where Julie I agree.

On this particular issue, there is a delicate balance to be made.

And we also have to protect the privacy of our citizens.

For example, just recently we passed a law in this state.

It was in working with the county orders to ensure that your signature is not simply viewed on screen in a digital fashion.

Now you can go to your county auditor and look at the the ballots and look at the signatures yourself.

But the last thing we want to do is allow anyone to go in there and just pull signatures, because, as you all know, then you're creeping into identity theft there.

So it is a delicate balance that we're constantly trying to look at these requests as they come in to ensure that we're not releasing private information of an individual.

I think the worst thing that could happen is release some information that shows somehow a linkage of how you voted.

And that's one thing that we don't want to do.

Thank you.

And we'll start with you for this next question And this is actually an audience submitted question.

Do you support allowing someone to drop off a mail in ballot for people with a disability or older adult or older adults who may not be able to to a ballot drop box?

Why or why not?

Oh, absolutely.

It's mostly driven from the fact that I have three boys in my house and my wife and, you know, I'm going down the store to get some milk.

And, you know, if they want me to drop off their ballot, they can.

And my son again development just belt disabled kid.

You know, I'm going to take his ballot to the drop box.

Also, people out there may have problems, maybe medically have a condition or maybe they're in a hospital or or laid up in some way of of course, they should be able to have the ability to have someone take that ballo and put it in a drop box or a mailbox.

Just please don't hand your ballot off to a stranger.

That's something that you shouldn't do.

Do you, Miss Anderson?

Absolutely.

It's the law of the land as well.

You can carry your neighbor, a family member or anybody's ballot and deposited at the election center or the drop box.

I think the missing piece of the story is that you can't stuffed the ballot drop box.

Elbow ballots that are issued are individually issued and tied to individual voters.

And we verify the identity of the voter before we process the ballot.

Yeah.

I think that's all I've got to say about that, Miss Anderson.

Do you believe the state's address confidentiality program is adequate to protect victims of domestic violence, trafficking, assault and harassment?

And how would you continue to advocate for proper funding and support for the program if elected?

Well, the address confidentiality is a key tool for crime victims and survivors of domestic violence.

And it's a program that runs well.

I would like to see it expanded.

It has been limited pretty much to voter registration and marriage licensing and having those public records sheltered.

But we're moving into an age now where the state legislature has allowed these address confidentiality participants to own real property.

So auditors and industry leaders are working through the Recording Standards Commission under the Secretary of State's office to make rules for what does real property and chain of title look like if those aren't public records?

I was involved very early on in the Recording Standards Commission and this initiative.

I would also like to use my experience.

I was also the executive director of the YWCA and worked extensively with victims of domestic violence.

I'd like to work with our district and superior courts, which is where you are most likely to be.

You are going to be there if you're filing for divorce, if you're filing for a protection order, and make sure that the courts are delivering information about how to access the address confidentiality program, because I don't think that we have as many enrollees as we should.

So that's how I would improve that program.

Thank you, Mr. Holmes.

No, it's a great program.

You should look it up.

And it's it's unfortunately, you know, people have to use it because they're they're being victimized.

My my were in the secretary of state's office is ensuring that we have enough people in there to ensure the program keeps on running.

So that's what I'll be keeping an eye on because it is a great program and obviously any leakage that happens where someone can connect the dots and locate an individual is of great concern to us and to the person, to the people that we serve.

Thank you, Mr. Hubbs.

The legislature recently passed a bill to restore voting rights to those convicted of a felony.

Is that something you support, and would you want to see it expanded in any way?

So I was against that bill.

But the good news is, is that it was a clean bill which basically said that if you had if you are not in a prison.

You are allowed to vote.

So basically if you're sleeping in the prison.

You're still allowed to vote.

I was against it because I feel that they should on their time.

But that's passed on the secretary of state now.

And I'm going to abide by the law.

What I am against is allowing prisoners who are still incarcerated, allowed to vote.

I think they need to do their time, as I think most Washingtonians feel that way.

However, I do think that we need to do everything we can for those incarcerated individuals who are about ready to leave to get them ready for citizenship.

So luckily, we own all the libraries in the state prison.

And so using that opportunity to teach the incarcerated folks who are about ready to be released about how to vote, how the vote process is done, and getting ready to getting them ready to register is a good and honorable thing that we should do.

Yes.

Ms.. Anderson, I did support that bill, and I'm glad that it passed.

It does make clear that if you're behind bars, serving your time for your family, a felony, that you can't register and you can't vote.

But it clarified that the legal financial obligations don't need to be completed, which basically amounts to a poll tax.

What's often misunderstood is that if you're not making good faith efforts towards clearing that debt, the prosecutor can refer back to court and can have that franchisee petition to have that franchise taken away.

I think that being able to vote is an important part of restorative justice and making amends to a community.

If somebody's serving time in prison for a felony, they've done harm to the community and to their neighbors and being able to participate in voting and becoming part of the community.

Don't don't we all want everybody to have take part in this responsibility.

And if they're willing to do it, we want to register them and make sure that they get a ballot.

So I think it's a good idea.

Yeah.

Thank you, Ms.. Anderson.

During the 2020 election, your predecessor, Mr. Hobbs, his predecessor, Secretary Wineman, was very outspoken nationally about Washington's election systems and worked with a number of other secretaries of state on improving their systems.

How would you work with other states to help improve their systems and security regarding elections?

And are there any federal reforms that you would like to see enacted?

Well, I'm going to do what I'm currently doing as a county auditor and definitely keep doing what Kim did as secretary of state.

We fairly regularly host other states at Pierce County elections so that they can look at our technology, meet with our staff, talk about our procedures, and review Washington state election law.

So we're going to keep doing that.

The last state that we hosted for any length of time was Hawaii, and they're now entirely a vote by mail state.

I don't know if you know this, but we've gone from five vote by mail states to eight in 2021.

I think a primary duty of the Secretary of State is to export confidence and evidence to other states so that they can find their way to this voting system that makes best sense for their communities.

And to.

Yeah, just to provide that evidence and export confidence.

Yeah.

Mr. Hobbs?

Yes?

There's an association called the National Association of Secretaries of State, and that group works together on national policies to move voting forward.

And there is a sizable group of us in that organizatio that would like to see the Voting Rights Act passed in Congress.

Unfortunately, it's sitting there in the U.S. Senate.

Hopefully things can change in the next election so they can move forward.

But here's the thing.

90% of the stuff in that bill is what we already do Now, there's some stuff in there that we don't do, like making it a national holiday.

We don't do that here.

And I mean, it'd be great for all of you, but for my office, we have to work that day.

But that's something that we will continue to do working wit our other secretaries of state.

And we also do a lot with cybersecurity and misinformation.

We meet regularly with Homeland Security to talk about these issues as they come up.

In fact, the Secretary of State is the only statewide elected office for Homeland Security Office of Security Clearances.

Thank goodness I worked in the National Security Agency and dealt with cybersecurity, misinformation, threats.

So I already had a security clearance.

But we all work together to protect our democracy.

Thank you.

And I want to ask one more audience question.

Audience submitted question Before we have to wrap up, Mr. Hobbs, we'll start with you.

How will you ensure that older adults are not the target of election scams?

Yes, thank you very much.

One thing that we've been doing again is looking into the future and how we can help our.

More senior voters not get scammed.

And it's not just about voting, too.

It's about corporations, charities and nonprofits.

It's very frustrating.

There's a there's bills I'd like to put out next year dealing with those issues, because if you Google sometimes corporations, they'll be these scam artists, they'll come up and top rather than the secretaries of state office .

And doing the the outreach that I told you about creating these groups, the Trusted Messenger program, they're tied to communities and reaching out to organizations that have strong ties to the communities like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Tri-Cities, to get the word out about how elections are ran and to avoid fraud and notify them about instances of misinformation that could that could come up.

Miss Anderson, the secretary of state's office really can be like a consumer protection agency overlaying all of these divisions.

Corporations, charities address confidentiality, elections, the state library, state archives with some special sensitivities about how you can be taken advantage of and defrauded.

Pierce County We do something pretty innovative with those people who are living in assisted living and nursing homes.

I go out and teach the owners of those facilities and the managers there and the staff about their dutie and responsibilities, letting them know what the law says about the limitations of assisting people with voting what to do if a voter doesn't want to participate anymore and that they don't have the right to make that decision for somebody that's in a facility, only a court order or the voter themselves can do it.

So going over those rules, providing training, providing them with forms has been very successful in Pierce County.

And I certainly would like to talk with the other counties about exporting that and doing that statewide, maybe through an ombudsman that the state of Washington already has.

So we definitely want everybody to participate for as long as they want to participate.

And I will say that we are all in a state of getting older and disabled, and we need specialized technology to make it easier to vote.

If you have limited eyesight or dexterity, you miss Anderson And we have time for our final closing question.

And we have kind of we're running out of time.

So I think we have to keep our responses to about 30 seconds, if that's okay.

And it's no secret that the country is currently in a time of division.

Both of you have said that there is a lot at stake this election for our democracy and election integrity.

If elected, how would you work with people on the other ends of the political spectrum, especially those that might have doubts about elections?

We'll start with you, Ms.. Anderson.

Well, as I said, you've got to start without partizan rhetoric