Ensuring the integrity of elections is the most crucial role of the secretary of state. On that, Washington’s Republican incumbent Kim Wyman and her Democratic challenger, state Rep. Gael Tarleton, agree.
But in a virtual meeting Thursday with The Columbian’s Editorial Board, concerns over election security and potential interference — both foreign and domestic — dominated the conversation.
The candidates’ main difference came down to urgency: Wyman is proud of Washington’s election system, and said she thinks the state is taking the right steps to ensure the integrity of its democratic process. Tarleton, who previously worked as an intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, thinks the office should be doing more.
“We now have domestic attacks on our elections. I never thought I would live to see this day,” said Tarleton, who now represents Seattle’s 36th Legislative District in Olympia.
Vote-by-mail and COVID-19
In Washington, where vote-by-mail has been the standard practice for 15 years, voters are uniquely situated to sustain turnout even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s a reflection of the state’s success, said Wyman, who has served as secretary of state since 2012.
“What we do here in Washington state is a national model, and I’m really glad to be part of building out our current system,” Wyman told the editorial board. “We have built arguably the safest, most successful and most secure election system in the country.”
Tarleton agreed, though she expressed frustration with what she regarded as inaction from Wyman when rumblings of COVID-19 in early 2020 started to make their way to the United States — the risk of virus transmission cast doubts on the ability of citizens in other states to safely vote in-person.
Washington is only a leader in vote-by-mail insofar that it actually advocates for other states to adopt the system and support their transition, Tarleton argued. Every state already has a small-scale vote-by-mail system in place for absentee ballots; Wyman, she said, dwindled “an important opportunity.”
“We could have coordinated with those states,” Tarleton said. “It would have been a great opportunity for her to convene with her Republican secretary of state (colleagues).”
Wyman countered that it would be unrealistic to impose Washington’s vote-by-mail system on other states with only a few months of lead time. Washington made the transition gradually, she pointed out, in multiple elections stretched over the course of a decade to iron out the kinks.
“It takes time to build out the capacity and the capabilities of those systems. It’s easy to throw out those political jabs, but the reality is doing the work,” Wyman said. “To make a sweeping statement that every state in the country can do whatever is just not the nature of our election system.”
Election security
Wyman and Tarleton fundamentally disagree on the extent to which elections in the United States are under threat.
In Washington, Wyman said, all elections equipment, such as vote-counting machines, are nationally certified. Over the last couple years, her office has worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to prepare for the possibility of a cyberattack on or near Election Day, she said.
“This really sums up the contrast that we have in this election and in this race,” Wyman said. “We are working very hard and diligently to maintain our cybersecurity defenses … We’ve been preparing for this election for well over two years.”
Tarleton said she decided to run for the office because she saw how Russians interfered in the 2016 election. Since then, domestic attacks on elections — including those from the White House, where she contends the Trump administration is undermining vote-by-mail and under-funding the United States Postal Service — have only gotten worse, Tarleton said.
At the Pentagon, Tarleton focused on security issues affecting ports, and she worked in the private sector in post-Cold War Russia. Based on her expertise, the office isn’t doing enough to secure its elections, she said, and there are vulnerabilities in the state’s elections systems that bad actors could exploit. For example, around half of the state’s election equipment is made by a single manufacturer, she said.
Attacks on our elections also have psychological consequences that can play out at the polls, Tarleton pointed out, because they undermine voters’ confidence that their vote will actually matter.
“And that is exactly what authoritarian regimes want,” Tarleton said. “I have been very concerned as a legislator that we are not addressing the nature of the risks to our democracy.”
Political affiliation
The board asked each candidate to name a political figure they admire. Wyman picked Ronald Reagan.
“He’s the reason I’m a Republican,” Wyman said.
Tarleton named former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, who died last month. As someone with experience in national security, she especially admired his actions and demeanor following the Sept. 11 attacks. Gorton was a member of the committee that investigated the attacks.
“It was an extraordinary thing to witness, and it required the diplomacy and the knowledge and the skills of an extraordinary person,” Tarleton said.
Asked whom she supports for president, Wyman said that she’d never publicly stated outright whom she planned to vote for over the course of her career — and she wasn’t going to break that streak this year.
Tarleton specified that she would not cast her ballot for President Donald Trump.
Both Tarleton and Wyman will appear statewide on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
