Washington voters searching online for verification their ballots have been received may have clicked on a site called VoteWashington.info. The unofficial site, which has been shared extensively on social media, has been reported to the Department of Homeland Security as misinformation. In a statement, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said the unofficial site developers did not coordinate with the Secretary of State’s Office and their site is not updated in real time.
Wyman spoke about the concerns in a press conference on Thursday.
“We provide that data and this is something that individuals or organizations can certainly compile that data and use it, but once they receive that data from the Secretary of State’s Office – we don’t have any control over it. It’s not our data any longer. We don’t know what they’re doing with it, how they’re compiling it, if they’re matching it with any other data, so that’s where we get a little nervous.”
Wyman also clarified that no ballot that has been returned for the 2020 General Election has been rejected. When an untabulated vote is tagged with the word, “rejected’, that means there is an issue with that particular ballot, most often a missing signature. County election officials reach out to voters whose ballots have missing or non-matching signatures to resolve the error. Washington voters have until 20 days after Election Day to cure the signature problem.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security were able to identify the unofficial site developers, and coordinated a virtual meeting between them and the Office of the Secretary of State Wednesday afternoon. The site remains active, but developers have since added a disclaimer stating the unofficial nature of the site, with a link to the official VoteWA.gov site.