OLYMPIA, Wash — Secretary of State Kim Wyman is urging voters to be careful with an unofficial website many people are using to check on the status of their ballots.
“I’ve already found a few things on that website that are absolutely, categorically wrong,” she said, Tuesday.
VoteWashington.info appears to be a helpful tool for looking up ballot information and voter turnout by county.
But Wyman says the site is suspect. She said she’s already reported it to U.S. Department of Homeland Security and federal authorities monitoring election cybersecurity.
One of the problematic sections on the site lists voters whose ballots have been rejected, Wyman said.
“What I can tell you for a complete fact is no ballots across the state of Washington have been rejected, because the only entity that can reject a ballot is the county canvassing board, and our county canvassing boards have not begun meeting,” Wyman said.
The website does not state who created it and the site’s owner took steps to hide their identity.
The site says it uses publicly available data “to provide enhanced access to your public voter information.”
"There is no political agenda to create distrust or discord with the state and county elections, we are hoping to provide the tools to the public to build confidence in the election systems and to audit the ballot status of any publicly disclosed voter,” the site states.
The only official source for election information is VoteWA.gov.
Voters with challenged ballots should contact their county elections office to fix any mistakes, Wyman said.
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