At a campaign rally for Republican
congressional candidate Joe Kent,
Clark County Auditor candidate
Brett Simpson told voters that
election fraud is rampant.
Now you can see the scale of
the fraud that is taking place
in the state of Washington.
Here in Clark County, we didn't quite
shoot the moon like Snohomish did,
but we ended up with over 90%
of all printed ballots returned.
It's an impossibility.
It's completely out of the normal,
and it's completely out of the historics
of voting in the United States.
But the certified vote
totals don't back that up.
And there is no evidence of
voter fraud in Clark County,
as Simpson claims.
About 85% of registered voters in
Clark County voted in the 2020
presidential election. Similarly,
85% of voters cast their ballots in 2008,
as Barack Obama and John McCain squared off.
About 77% turned out in 2016.
We asked county auditor.
Greg Kimsey,
who both overseas the county's
election results and is running
against Simpson for reelection
for his response to Simpson's
numerous claims of voter fraud, one
being the amount of ballots returned
in 2020 was an impossibility
when it was too many here
in Clark County. Why are you smiling because
it's just so patently not true? The
returns in the 2020 were not at all abnormal,
Kimsey says. He's astounded that people
continue to believe disproven claims
about widespread election fraud.
Misinformation about elections
undermines people's confidence in
the in the results of elections,
which is a direct threat to our democracy.
At the Kent Campaign event,
one of Simpson's statements received
a bigger reaction than the rest
is we actually don't own our own
registry voter registrations.
It's done by a third party
company by the name of Eric.
It's electronic Registration
Information Center.
It was seed funded by George
Soros's Open Society in 2011 and
breakdown Simpson statement here.
First off, what is Eric Eric's made-up of
a coalition of 33 States and Washington,
DC it reviews voter rolls to help make
sure they're accurate and up-to-date.
Because many people don't remember to
update their voter registration when
they move states or because people die,
error provides reports to states to help
them prevent potential voter fraud.
Eric's also been the subject of
conspiracy theories from far right media.
This year, Washington's elections
director says simply,
Eric's just a huge help.
So to say that Eric is doing
anything is misleading.
It's providing us with data and
information that we would otherwise not
have in order to increase the integrity
of the voter registration rolls.
So it's a tool that we need as
election administrators to ensure
that people that are registered
in another state get removed from
their voter rolls in our state.
The state of Washington was one of seven
states of both Republican and Democratic
leadership that started Eric in 2012.
As for Simpsons claims about George Soros,
the billionaire philanthropist,
his open society foundations gave
a one time $500,000 contribution
to Pew Charitable Trusts.
Pew is a national,
nonpartisan nonprofit that receives more
than $300 million in grants annually.
Pew provided startup funding
for Eric in 2012,
but Eric has been funded by
the Member States ever since.
It's up to the individual states
to submit voter registration and
licensing data to Eric and then
use any Eric reports to then
check and manage their own.
Butterless.
So we we end up with much better voter
registration rules, much cleaner,
much more accurate voter registration
rolls with Eric than without Eric.
Now I'd like to share my
reporting process for this story.
I saw Brett Simpson speak at a recent
campaign event and recorded these comments.
I then talked with the Washington
Secretary of State's office
and the Eric Organization.
Then I asked Clark County
Auditor and Simpson's opponent,
Greg Kimsey, for his response.
Then yesterday,
I sent a message to Brett Simpson
explaining this process and how I had
researched and then refuted some of
his claims about fraudulent elections.
I asked Simpson if you'd like to add or
clarify anything from his statements.
He didn't respond to that e-mail.
However, this afternoon Brett Simpson
did post a video on his Facebook page.
He said that this report would
be a hit piece of gaslighting
from the mainstream media.
He also criticized media attention
on this county auditors race,
calling it literally unprecedented.
However,
Simpson did not respond to my
questions about his false claims
about Eric or the voter turn out
from the 2020 presidential election.
So Pat, that's how we got here.
I should add that the state of
Washington's elections director
also said that these claims of
voter fraud are are proven false at
this point. OK.
And just to remind people,
he's running for a
position called auditor,
but in fact he's going to
be in charge of elections.
As the county auditor position,
is the Chief Financial Officer
for the county, but also the
main role that most people know
is overseeing the accountable,
fair, accurate elections
process. And is there anyone else running?
Is it just him and the incumbent
in the Clark County voters pamphlet?
It's just those two individuals,
Greg Kimsey we saw and Brett Simpson,
who you both saw in this story.
OK, interesting reporting. Thanks, Evan.