Senator Patty Kuderer spoke before the Washington State Senate Thursday about her bill to remove Washington State’s requirement for advisory votes on revenue legislation, according to a release.
Advisory votes cost Washington millions each election and discourage people from voting, the release said.
“In a state that leads the nation in voting accessibility and election integrity, it baffles me that we still waste millions of dollars on a corrupt act of voter suppression like advisory votes,” Kuderer said. “These non-binding, vote-imposters pollute our ballots with anti-tax propaganda specifically designed to instill distrust in government—and they do it on our most fundamental sanctuary of democracy, the ballot. They are fraudulent because they use loaded, misleading language, meant to push private interests and to influence rather than measure public opinion. We need real tools for making the Legislature’s work more transparent, not political rhetoric.”
Senate Bill 5082 would make the information still available via QR code, coupled with an online database. This would add a layer of accountability and make the information more accurate, the release said.
“This means people can better understand where their money is going, how it is going to be spent,” Kuderer said. “This is far more transparent and more accurate than advisory votes, which are neither advisory nor actual votes.”
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