Hobbs, Anderson debate focuses on trust in elections amid national crisis

The first debate of the 2022 election cycle was held between the two front runners of the Washington Secretary of State election between incumbent candidate Steve Hobbs and challenger Julie Anderson Wednesday Aug. 17.

Incumbent Steve Hobbs was appointed to the office following Republican Kim Wyman’s early exit when she took a post in the other Washington. Hobbs’ appointment marked the first time a Democrat had held the state’s top election post in nearly 60 years.

Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson is running without party affiliation, citing her strong belief that political parties do not belong in the Secretary of State’s Office. Anderson managed to rake in $159,745 in campaign contributions as of late July.

Steve Hobbs, Julie Anderson leading in Secretary of State primary election

The single biggest issue of the debate was the issue of election integrity, misinformation, and political polarization, about which Hobbs and Anderson were mainly in agreement.

Solving that issue, for auditor Anderson, was removing the politics from the position of Secretary of State, a job she said she was best fit for because of her time as a non-partisan election official.

“The secretary of state’s job is too important to entrust to an inexperienced political appointee,” Anderson said. “And, in fact, partisanship is a destructive distraction in a job like this. I’m running for Secretary of State to work for you, not for a political party. I believe that a trustworthy democracy is one in which every voter feels welcomed.

“I’m running for this office, without any political endorsements and without any political money,” Anderson continued. “Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have personal values and that I haven’t participated in politics before. It means that I’ve been very, very careful to disengage from partisan politics while I’ve been an election administrator.”

To Secretary Hobbs, the issue wasn’t about party identity, but rather the ability of the Secretary of State to reach across the party line when working on these issues, highlighting his numerous bipartisan efforts both as an elected official and as the acting Secretary of State. Specifically, he referenced his time with his predecessor Kim Wyman, a Republican, and the work he was able to do with her.

“It’s about working across the aisle,” Hobbs said. “I don’t think it really matters what party you have, what matters what you’re doing that position and I’ve been there for a year or not almost a year now. And we’ve passed significant policies and passed a budget that worked for the office and works with the voters of the state.”

Implementing these solutions was a big point of agreement, but each candidate tried to separately highlight how their unique experience would help facilitate securing elections and educating the public about election integrity.

“We all need to be on the same page, whether we’re facing a crisis, trying to beat down disinformation, or simply trying to educate the electorate,” Anderson said. “This is where experience matters because part of explaining that checks and balances in our election system have to go all the way through when we’re setting up an election, to conduct the election and how we count ballots through certification and reconciliation. I’m the only candidate that has actually worked through the entire system and overseen that.”

Hobbs pointed to his long history of service, not only as a politician within the state legislature, but also as a leader in the military, especially when it came to developing relationships with those that can help increase election security.

“A real threat is the misinformation campaigns that have been launched against this office and elections in general,” Hobbs said. “We’ve doubled our cybersecurity efforts. We’re strengthening  our cybersecurity with the Air National Guard, and we’re going to conduct exercises next year to protect ourselves … It is disconcerting that there was a poll at KING 5 news that showed that 35% of Washingtonians have lost confidence in the election, we need to do better to notify the public about how elections are run in this state.”

Anderson says she was able to get the public involved in the voting process as Pierce County Auditor. She thinks this transparency will help eliminate fears that people have over election integrity.

“I’ve had great success inviting people into the office and giving them a tour and answering their questions,” Anderson said. “Sometimes they’ll leave with still some remaining doubts, but they always feel better after they leave … I would also say that there are some folks that are going to be unreachable. So we’re going to offer that evidence, we’re going to offer increased transparency, more robust audits, evidence of our cybersecurity, and these tours and one on one interviews.”

Other issues from the debate ranged from storing documents in the Washington state archives to how the Secretary of State’s Office should work with the postal service for mail-in ballots. The main message that each candidate wanted to get across though was consistent: It is all about experience.

Both candidates agreed on keeping elections to both even and odd years, advocated for counties to institute rank choice voting if their constituents wanted it (but not on a statewide level), and to make election information accessible to all, even if English was a second language.

The two candidates summarized their positions, experiences, and why they thought they were the best for the job in their concluding statements of the debate.

“We’re dealing with cyber threats and misinformation campaigns, you can just turn on the news and they’ll be talking about Jan. 6, the threat to our democracy is real,” Hobbs concluded. “We need to have somebody in the office that not only can work with our 39 county auditors, which I have done, having been in office for almost a year. We need someone that represents Washingtonians who feel that they’re underrepresented and underserved. As a son of an Asian immigrant and the person of color, the only person of color in statewide office, I feel that I have the credentials to hold on and help the Washington voters across the state.”

“Unfortunately, polarization is high, and trust in government is very low,” Anderson concluded. “And we have communities and friendships that are being torn apart because our politics are just broken. We have to shield the Office of the Secretary of State from partisanship that is eroding trust in our elections. And that begins here with this election. I’ve been endorsed by 40 election professionals across the state because they know that all deliver for you. Here’s the choice and inexperienced political appointee or me, Julie Anderson.”

The general election for the Washington Secretary of State is on November 8, with ballots set to go out in mid-October.