Secretary of State issues statement on Culp campaign claims of ‘anomalies’ in 2020 General Election

OLYMPIA — Following a Facebook Live video posted by gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp, in which attorney Stephen Pidgeon, Ph.D., alleged over 800,000 votes were tallied than eligible voters who appear in the voter registration database, Secretary of State Kim Wyman issued the following statement:

Secretary of State Kim Wyman 
answers allegations from failed
gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp

“Gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp, and now attorney Stephen Pidgeon, have made sweeping claims about alleged voter fraud committed in the 2020 General Election without providing any substantive evidence. 

"If Mr. Culp, his attorney, or anyone else believes they have evidence of fraud, I urge them to report their findings to their county election officials and the Secretary of State’s Office. As a member of law enforcement who purports to have evidence of felonies, Mr. Culp should be duty-bound to provide that evidence to the appropriate authorities so these cases can be investigated by county sheriffs and prosecutors, and possibly the FBI.

“Mr. Pidgeon’s claim that only 3.2 million people voted in the 2020 general election is false. Nearly 4.2 million people voted in the Nov. 3 election. No evidence has been presented to suggest that 10,000 ballots were cast for deceased voters, or 300,000 people who moved out of Washington state fraudulently voted as Mr. Pidgeon alleges.

“Voter-roll maintenance is conducted on an ongoing basis by county election officials. The Office of the Secretary of State works with county election officials, the Department of Licensing, the Department of Health, the Department of Corrections, the Office of the Administrator of the Courts, the Social Security Administration, and the Electronic Registration Information Center to improve the accuracy of voter registration data. 

"Each month, the Office of the Secretary of State receives a list of deceased people from the Department of Health and the Social Security Administration. These lists are compared to the voter registration list. Potential matches are flagged for research by the county elections offices and are removed if the person is found to be deceased. If evidence is found someone voted on behalf of a deceased person, county election officials forward that information to the county sheriff and prosecutor for further investigation and potential prosecution.

“County election officials work with their mailing vendors to modify the format of mailing addresses included in the voter registration database to ensure the U.S. Postal Service equipment can read and sort accurately using CASS-certified address validation software. This process ensures the ballots will be mailed to the proper address using the most efficient route, not that the addresses were invalid as claimed by the Culp campaign.

“We have safeguards in place before, during, and after each election, and conduct numerous audits throughout to ensure all election functions and processes are operating properly and accurately.

“Before any system can be certified for use, it must be tested by an Election Assistance Commission- accredited, independent testing authority. There are currently two laboratories that provide this testing at the federal level — Pro V&V, Inc. and SLI Compliance, a division of Gaming Laboratories International, LLC. Then, prior to use in Washington state, election systems undergo review by our independent state Election System Certification Board. All systems in use in Washington state have undergone this testing by both state and federal authorities.

“Also prior to every election, including the 2020 General Election, the Office of the Secretary of State presides over tests performed by county election offices to ensure the accuracy of the vote-counting equipment.

Loren Culp lost the gubernatorial
election and is alleging fraud.

“Franklin County is the only county in Washington state that uses a version of Dominion Voting Systems software and hardware. The system in use has been certified, and no issues have been identified.

“After an election, officials conduct rigorous post-election processes such as auditing voting machines and voting precincts to actual ballots cast. County election offices perform post-election audits during election week that are open to the public for observation. This is standard for all elections, and helps ensure the results they certify later in the month are accurate.

“Though election officials use tabulation equipment to count ballots, every ballot processed and tabulated is a paper ballot, which provides a verifiable paper trail for auditing purposes. After Election Day, counties conduct audits across multiple precincts, during which they confirm the manual tallies match the totals tabulated by the machine. In Franklin County, this confirmed the version of Dominion Voting Systems software they used functioned properly and accurately.

“Additionally, neither the Dominion software in use in Franklin County nor any software used throughout the state relies on any technology provided by Smartmatic. In fact, Smartmatic released information last month about its supposed connection to election systems throughout the country.

“The Office of the Secretary of State takes allegations of voter fraud seriously. If anyone has evidence of voter fraud being committed in Washington state, I implore you to provide that evidence to your county elections official and/or the Office of the Secretary of State.”