County Auditor faces lawsuit for Voter’s Pamphlet

Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall will be charged with failure to present both sides of an issue in the local Voter’s Pamphlet as required by law.

The suit will be filed by the Freedom Foundation today in Thurston County Superior Court.

As county auditor Hall is charged with presenting both sides of an issue if a voter’s pamphlet is printed.   Hall failed to do this in the recent voter’s pamphlet for school bond issues.

The suit says that the Freedom Foundation noticed that some counties routinely fail to present both sides of an issue.  They contacted all 39 Washington counties offering assistance in finding someone to write a statement on either side of an issue.

Several counties worked with the Freedom Foundation but the suit says that Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall disregarded the assistance and never responded to the Freedom Foundation’s offer.

Freedom Foundation says its bringing legal action against Hall to clarify that state law requires election officials to act in good faith to see that both sides are presented in the Voter Pamphlet and to ask Thurston County Superior Court to retain jurisdiction over the case in order to prevent further violations of the law.

(Editor’s note:   I too offered to find someone to write the Anti statement against the school bond issues but was never contacted for my help.   I also think this is the first time school bond issues have ever had a voter’s pamphlet printed just for them.)