Today, March 13 the WAGOP lawsuit filed in Clark County Superior Court disputing the 2024 Legislative District 18 State Senator race, was finally heard.
The case is Matthew Frohlich and Washington State Republican Party Plaintiffs, V Clark County and Greg Kimsey, in his official Capacity as the Clark County Auditor, Defendants (#24-2-04196-06).
In the race, Republican candidate Brad Benton lost by 172 votes with 84,123 total votes cast. Benton has 41,881 (49.79%) votes and his Democrat challenger Adrian Cortes has 42,053 (49.99%) votes.
Clark County auditor Greg Kimsey was sued by Frohlich and the WAGOP for not cleaning up the Clark County voter rolls prior to ballots being mailed for the 2024 Nov 5th general election. The plaintiffs assert that Kimsey ignored the standard National Change of Address (NCOA) reports he regularly receives and did not update the voter rolls in a timely manner.
The lawsuit contends that thousands of ballots were mailed to non-eligible voters who had previously moved out of Legislative District 18 before ballots were mailed and thereby affected the race results between Benton and Cortes. Cortes win directly contributed to the Democrats having a super majority (by one vote) in Olympia, allowing them to pass virtually any proposed bill they want.
The WAGOP and their attorney Joel Ard Law made their case that hundreds of votes counted in the race were from voters who did not reside in the district, violating RCW 29A.08.060, and should have not been counted in the race.
The plaintiffs made the claim that Auditor Kimsey neglected his duty to tally LD-18 votes only from LD-18 voters, saying the court should grant the motion and, under RCW 29A.68.013(2), bar Kimsey from certifying a winner in the LD-18 Senate election.
Their evidence presented was that the NCOA database maintained by the USPS reflects that hundreds of ballots mailed, returned, and tallied in the race were voted and returned by people who had previously contacted the USPS and filed change of address notices. According to the WAGOP, that list of about 600 voters were potentially ineligible to vote in the election, but somehow their ballots were cast and counted.
A WAGOP canvassing team went to many of the addresses to verify voter residency and obtained signed affidavits and documentation from over half of the addresses attesting to their findings for each address.
On Jan 27, the WAGOP submitted 312 sworn written affidavits by canvassers & residents of LD 18 that say about 300 voters that cast a ballot from their respective addresses did NOT reside at their address.
Inslee Appointee, Clark County Superior Court Judge Camara Banfield, heard the case. Banfield denied the WAGOP’s motion for summary judgment, and ruled that much of the plaintiffs documentary affidavit evidence presented by Ard were “hearsay” and ruled to be “not relevant” and “not reliable.” The Judges reasoning was because about half of the 312 affidavits submitted were signed by the canvassers and not the residents of the voter addresses in question.
Furthermore, the Judge stated that the plaintiffs did not prove that Auditor Kimsey violated any RCWs or State Statues. And, additionally, the plaintiffs failed to prove negligence by Kimsey and did not provide any case law to back up their claim.
The WA State Secretary of State and their attorney who intervened in the lawsuit with Clark County and Kimsey, made their case that Kimsey did nothing wrong and followed the law as it is today. The Judge appeared to agree…
After about an hour of both sides arguing their cases, the judge also appeared to be sympathetic to the plaintiffs claims, and was surprised at the weaknesses in confirming residency in the WA State vote by mail system.
Therefore, she allowed the plaintiffs to firm up their claims and evidence, and come back in two weeks to again present their case.
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