Print  email 

tool name

close

tool goes here

Judge dismisses underage voter complaint against state

• Published October 23, 2009

• Comments (0)

A Thurston County judge dismissed a legal complaint this afternoon over state procedures for registering teen voters who are still 17 in Washington state. She said there is no evidence the state allows significant numbers of underage voters to cast ballots.

Jonathan Bechtle, legal counsel for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, said the conservative, Olympia-based think tank would weigh whether to appeal the ruling by Superior Court Judge Anne Hirsch.

Hirsch said the burden of proof went to plaintiff Robert Edelman of EFF to show an administrative judge was wrong last year in finding the Office of the Secretary of State acted within the bounds of federal election law with its handling of teen voters younger than 18.

A study by the Edelman last year showed 108 teenagers younger than 18 voted in Washington elections since 2000, casting 127 unlawful ballots in that period, including four in the February 2008 presidential primary.

The Office of the Secretary of State lets youths register prior to their 18th birthdays, but registrations are not supposed to become active until the voter turns 18. A few ineligible voters were discovered before the 2008 general election, but the ballots were not counted because monitoring procedures in place by the state and counties uncovered the errors.

Shane Hamlin, assistant director of elections, said Hirsch ruled "there is substantial evidence that we have procedures and policies in place to prevent underage applicants from voting." Administrative law judge Rebekah R. Ross ruled in October 2008 that the federal Help America Vote Act "requires only that the Secretary of State make a reasonable effort to remove registrants who are ineligible to vote. It does not discuss steps to prevent erroneous registration of underage voters" with exceptions. EFF's fight is part of ongoing fallout from the error-plagued 2004 election in Washington.