Washington’s Secretary of State says a private website that is providing information about voter turnout in the state is apparently on the up and up.
Kim Wyman told reporters Thursday that she and representatives from the Department of Homeland Security held a Zoom call this week with the two men who created VoteWashington.info. It provides not only stats about turnout, but also gives voters a chance to search to find out the status of their - and others' - ballots.
“We were concerned when we first saw the site because the look and feel looks very similar to our site," she said. "But when we talked to the two hosts of that site, I really had the feeling that they were trying to help voters be aware that their ballot had been challenged and putting that information in a single spot that was easily searchable.”
Wyman says her office first learned about the site last week and has been fielding calls since from voters worried about why their personal information was available online.
She says her office asked the men to take their site down. They refused, but they agreed to link on their front page to the Secretary of State’s site, which Wyman says should be considered the official place to find voter information.
By the way, Wyman says this is the information about you that is public.
“Your name, first, last and middle. Your residential address. Your mailing address. Your date of birth. Your voting history and, when I say voting history, that’s what elections you’ve participated in, not how you voted in any of those elections. That’s all public data, as is gender and, I think those are all the main public fields,” she said.