MYNORTHWEST NEWS

Former gubernatorial candidate Culp files lawsuit against WA Sec of State

Dec 11, 2020, 7:34 AM | Updated: 7:41 am

Loren Culp...

Loren Culp at an election event. (Culp for Governor, Facebook)

(Culp for Governor, Facebook)

On Thursday, the “Culp for Governor” campaign filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against the Washington Secretary of State asking for injunctive relief and demand for an audit of the paper ballots, vote counting machines, and voting results in King, Clark, Thurston, Pierce, Kitsap, and Skagit counties.

In the weeks following the November election, gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp has been insistent about his refusal to concede to incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee, adding that his campaign would take legal action over allegations of voter fraud.

With Washington election certified, Loren Culp continues to threaten legal action

Christopher Gergen, Culp’s senior campaign advisor, teased at that legal action in mid-November, saying at the time that he had “a lot of evidence of people receiving ballots who are not citizens,” as well as “evidence that dead people voted.” Gergen had also claimed the campaign had that evidence in hand, but continued to stop short of producing it publicly.

That’s a strategy Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman has found challenging, given her central role in helping investigate any potential claims of voter fraud.

“That’s what’s been a little frustrating by all these allegations on social media over the past month — give me something tangible,” she told KTTH’s Jason Rantz Show. “Give me a name of a person with an affidavit that’s signed and said that they received a ballot that shouldn’t have. Give me a name of a person that’s deceased who had a ballot returned.”

“Without the data, it’s impossible to do an investigation,” she added.

Gergan and Culp’s attorney Dr. Stephen Pidgeon spoke about the newly filed lawsuit in a YouTube video posted to the Culp for Governor campaign page on Dec. 10.

“We saw a lot of problems here in this particular election. And our review of this election is starting to surface things that are just, quite frankly, unacceptable,” Pidgeon said.

“If you get overconfident, you tend to get sloppy, and that’s exactly what happened,” he added.

The state constitution calls on the Secretary of State to make sure that the election is run fairly, Pidgeon explained. The state also has an obligation to determine who can vote and who cannot, he said.

“We know that the state did not run the failed ID act software against their own database prior to the election, so people were getting duplicate ballots, lots of them,” he said. “We know that they didn’t run a NCOA, a new change of address, against the postal records. In fact, they haven’t done that in four years, so they had 336,000 names on their mailing list that were people who had moved, many of which were undeliverable, but 171,000 of which had moved out of state.”

“The one that really tops it off, is of course the voting dead, which we see clear evidence of this,” Pidgeon said. “They put out ballots to over 10,000 dead people, and 7,800 of them voted.”

The state’s 2020 election results were officially certified by Wyman on Dec. 1, 2020.

Wyman has not yet publicly responded to Culp’s lawsuit.

This is a developing story.

MyNorthwest News

Florida...

STEVEN SLOAN, The Associated Press

Republican Byron Donalds is elected Florida’s first Black governor

Republican Rep. Byron Donalds was elected Florida’s first Black governor on Tuesday.

3 minutes ago

Cooper North Carolina...

JILL COLVIN, MARY CLARE JALONICK and WILL WEISSERT, The Associated Press

Cooper flips Senate seat in North Carolina as Democrats win in Georgia and New Hampshire

Democrats flipped a Senate seat in North Carolina and won races in Georgia and New Hampshire as they tried to recapture majorities in Congress.

28 minutes ago

Keisha Lance Bottoms...

BILL BARROW and KATE BRUMBACK, The Associated Press

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms makes history in Georgia as first Black woman to be elected governor

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor of Georgia, making history as the first Black woman to be elected governor in the U.S.

48 minutes ago

Burien shooting puppy...

Frank Lenzi

Man charged with murder after alleged shooting over puppy dispute in Burien

A 33-year-old man is charged with murder and assault after allegedly shooting two men and killing one at a Burien home last month during a dispute over a puppy.

1 hour ago

Harbor seal...

Brooke Griffin, KIRO 7 News

Harbor seal goes home after four months in the hospital

Puget Sound now has a new tenant: a rehabbed harbor seal named Machaca!

2 hours ago

King County deputy stabbing shoreline...

Frank Lenzi

Man accused of stabbing King County deputy in Shoreline faces assault, harassment charges

A man accused of stabbing a King County Sheriff's deputy in Shoreline last week has been formally charged after being released from jail.

2 hours ago

Former gubernatorial candidate Culp files lawsuit against WA Sec of State