Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey faces a challenger in the November election this year who claims local elections have been subject to “massive amounts of fraud.”
During a Sept. 26 candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Clark County, Kimsey faced off against Brett Simpson. Kimsey, who has held the office since 1999, has run unopposed since 2002.
“During that time, I have conducted elections in a transparent, accurate, secure and accountable manner,” Kimsey said.
Earlier this year, Simpson sued Kimsey and the county as a whole over the inclusion of the auditor’s race on the August primary ballot. Simpson argued state law prevented the inclusion of the race on the ballot because it had two or fewer candidates and because the position is nonpartisan. A Clark County Superior Court judge ruled against Simpson, who sued to prevent ballots in the race from being counted.
Kimsey ended up with nearly 70% of the vote in August.
Simpson, a land development manager, said he has experience with “very tight specifications, and then accountability for very large budgets including multi-billion-dollar construction projects,” which he said make him well suited for the job.
Simpson said his main focus, if elected, would center around how county elections are run.
“If we don’t have fair and free elections, then we don’t have anything,” Simpson said.
Simpson claimed there is “massive amounts of fraud” in the county and statewide. He said the evidence is laid out on his campaign website.
He took issue with the Albert sensor cybersecurity devices used by local governments to alert them of potential hacking attempts.
Kimsey refuted the concerns, saying the sensors “simply monitor traffic coming into the county servers” to identify “bad actors” accessing the system.
“It pains me to hear allegations of fraud in the elections process without any evidence provided,” Kimsey said. “Anyone who has evidence of fraud should contact law enforcement, the attorney general’s office, the state’s auditor’s office, the secretary of state’s office, the sheriff or the county auditor.”
Kimsey said the safety of election workers has become a concern following the 2020 election.
“They are subjected to daily abuse by citizens over the phone. (We) can’t do much about that, but whatever we can do to keep our people safe, I’m totally committed to doing,” Kimsey said.
He noted the Clark County Sheriff’s Office provides security and staff has been trained for crisis situations.
Simpson said he “didn’t realize there was a safety issue for workers” in elections.
“I suppose if it sounds like they’re getting calls and harassed about our free and fair elections, I would say the easiest way is to be transparent about what is going on with our elections,” Simpson said. “If the public has lost trust, then that’s a serious issue.”
Simpson said people who wanted to investigate local elections offered $150,000 for a “full, forensic audit,” but Kimsey refused.
Simpson said most of his community involvement has included “election integrity” groups who have made records requests and have spread the groups’ message.
Kimsey listed several board positions he has served in, including the Columbia River Land Trust, the Vancouver Housing Authority, and his time as a youth soccer coach.
Simpson said ranked-choice voting “is a terrible idea for America, specifically.” He said the voting format works in political spheres with numerous parties, but not in a de facto two-party system like the United States.
“I think it’s not suited for our political environment and the structure of our government,” Simpson said.
Kimsey said he didn’t have an official opinion on ranked-choice voting. He said it’s “best for citizens to become informed about that and make their own decision without my influence.”
Kimsey said the voting format did mitigate the potential of spoiler candidates who split votes.
“Al Gore would have been voted president without Ralph Nader. Dino Rossi would have been voted governor without the libertarian candidate,” Kimsey said.
Both candidates will join dozens of others seeking to be elected in this year’s general election. The deadline to submit ballots is 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
