Culp campaign lawsuit against WA secretary of state, election officials dismissed

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A lawsuit filed by Loren Culp’s campaign for governor against Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman and select county auditors has been dismissed, according to a news release from the secretary of state’s office.

Culp had demanded an audit of Washington’s 2020 General Election. However, Culp’s campaign withdrew the lawsuit on Thursday, state officials said.

According to the release, a notice of dismissal was filed “with prejudice,” which officials said means the lawsuit cannot be refiled.

“These unsubstantiated allegations were without merit and created confusion among Washington voters,” Wyman said. “Today we finally have an opportunity to shed light on some of the misleading and inaccurate assumptions made in this lawsuit and can continue working to restore confidence with a swath of Washington’s electorate.”

According to the release, the lawsuit claimed Wyman and election officials failed to properly maintain voter registration lists. The secretary of state’s office said after reviewing evidence that was submitted, the information showed incomplete data and had errors, such as lists of deceased voters who are in fact alive.

“Specifically, the lawsuit identified by comparing the voter registration database and the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) National Change of Address (NCOA) list nearly 339,000 registered voters who had moved but their addresses were not up to date,” the release stated.

The secretary of state’s office said they “do not rely solely on NCOA data” when verifying addresses.

According to the release, the lawsuit also alleged that the secretary of state had not run a NCOA update in at least four years, claiming “out of 5,236,436 addresses, only 117,543 had nine-digit ZIP codes.”

“Election officials use several means to identify deceased voters, and an analysis of the more than 7,000 deceased voters the Culp for Governor campaign noted found these cases to be false. Samples analyzed by some counties found these claims to be baseless, as ballots returned by deceased people are valid so long as the voter was alive at the time they cast their ballot.”

Cox Media Group