Secretary of state accused of campaign finance violations

OLYMPIA — The Washington state Attorney General’s Office says the campaign of Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman has violated the state’s campaign finance laws by failing to file disclosure reports on time.

The complaint filed Tuesday in Thurston County Superior Court seeks unspecified penalties. Wyman is running for re-election to a second term against Democrat Tina Podlodowski.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office received a complaint from the head of the state’s Democratic Central Committee, which was then referred to the state Public Disclosure Commission to investigate.

PDC staff found that several reports were filed late in April, and that contributions were filed late in May. Ferguson’s office noted that Wyman self-reported those errors to the PDC before state Democrats filed the complaint.

However the investigation found other similar late reports and deposits by the campaign between 2013 and 2016, according to the attorney general.

Ferguson has been recused from the matter.

In a written statement, Wyman said called the errors minor and said she is looking forward to getting this “resolved quickly and fairly.”