Judges in cases that alleged issues at the Clark County Auditor’s Office have determined there isn’t enough of a case for the lawsuits to continue.
On Sept. 30, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Washington Election Integrity Coalition United (WEICU) and dozens of individual plaintiffs against Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey and the county as a whole. In the court’s ruling, Judge Lauren King stated there was no “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent” injury based on the plaintiff’s claims.
The lawsuit was initially filed in Clark County Superior Court on Sept. 16, 2021, according to the ruling. The original suit is one of several filed by WEICU, six of which moved onto federal court like the Clark County case.
The individual plaintiffs alleged the auditor’s office allowed “fraudulent alternations of the voting results,” which were described by the plaintiffs as “vote flipping, additions and/or deletions,” the ruling stated. Those plaintiffs also alleged the office maintained records of elector party preference in the county and identified ballots by party preference, as well as violated both the U.S. and Washington state constitutions.
There were close to three dozen individual plaintiffs listed in the suit, including Clark County auditor candidate Brett Simpson and U.S. House of Representatives candidate Joe Kent, according to court documents.
The WEICU’s own claim alleged the auditor and Clark County violated the Washington Public Records Act for denying a request for “original ballots, ballot images, spoiled ballots, adjudication records, ballot envelopes, and returned ballots for the (e)lection,” according to court documents. The group requested access to those records “for a full forensic audit.”
Recognizing the right to vote and have the vote counted in the case is “a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society,” the court ruled the individual plaintiffs did not have “standing,” a legal standard which included “a personal stake in the outcome, distinct from a generally available grievance about government.”
The county and auditor argued the plaintiffs’ claims were “only generalized grievances and do not identify any particularized individual injury,” the ruling stated.
The ruling stated the Supreme Court “consistently held that a plaintiff raising only a generally available grievance about government — claiming only harm to his and every citizen’s interest in proper application of the Constitution and laws, and seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large,” did not qualify as an issue considerable by the court.
“Voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue,” the ruling stated. “As (d)efendants contend, (p)laintiffs fail to show such disadvantage.”
Following the ruling, Kimsey said the dismissal showed “no one, repeat, no one could specifically state that myself … did anything in violation of the constitution or any statute or rule.”
“In other words the court found that plaintiffs offered nothing to support their claims and thus had no legal (or) factual basis for claiming all the elections were anything but safe, secure and with valid results,” Kimsey said in an email response.
He said the ruling showed the difference between political posturing and “factual and legal arguments.”
“The plaintiffs suit was dismissed because they thought fiery political campaign rhetoric was a substitute for actual facts, proof and valid legal arguments,” Kimsey said. “The judge told them they were wrong.”
Also on Sept. 30, a Clark County judge dismissed a suit against the county, Kimsey and county elections supervisor Cathie Garber over a different elections matter. That suit, filed by Simpson, Kimsey’s challenger in this year’s election, alleged the inclusion of the auditor’s race which had two candidates on the primary election ballot violated state law. That contest was nonpartisan, a change from past years due to a change in the county’s home rule charter, which in other circumstances would prevent a two-candidate election being on the August ballot.
Prior to the lawsuit’s complete dismissal last month, a judge denied a motion in July that would have prevented votes from ballots in the race to be counted.
