WA Secretary of State says website showing rejected ballots is not official

The Washington Secretary of State’s Office has reported a website to the feds, which is falsely listing rejected ballots around the state.

With over 2 million ballots in, Washington doubles down on election security

Secretary of State Kim Wyman tells KIRO 7 TV the website is wrong. Only canvassing boards can reject a ballot, she says, and no canvassing boards have done so.

“There hasn’t been a single ballot across the state of Washington that has been rejected yet,” Wyman clarified. “No counties have had canvassing board meetings, and the county canvassing board is the only entity that can reject a ballot.”

Wyman says the website — Votewashington.info — is not an official site for her office. She adds that it’s not a verifiable source of election information.

In fact, Wyman says it is not known who created and is curating the site. She says it could be bad actors, trying to rile up voters with fraudulent information.

“We don’t know who has put this site up, we don’t know what that site does,” Wyman said. “You don’t know any of the code that’s behind it. You don’t know when you put your name in where that information is going.”

“The fact that a site is saying and telling voters by name, individually that their ballots have been rejected is just one more way to enflame voters and to get them riled up believing something that is simply not true,” she added.

MyNorthwest 2020 Voters Guide

Statement from our office regarding unverified source of election information: pic.twitter.com/tPZFqcCzHn

— Washington Office of the Secretary of State (@secstatewa) October 27, 2020

Wyman encourages voters to use the state’s official voter information portal at VoteWA.gov. She adds that anyone with a challenged ballot will be contacted by their county’s election office.

KIRO 7 TV contributed to this report.

Follow @http://twitter.com/Mynorthwest