Washington Voting Rights bill amended to address majority of city concerns

A bill that amends the Washington Voting Rights Act was amended to address many of AWC’s concerns.

SB 5597 would have placed a minimum of 64 cities into pre-clearance based solely on population thresholds. Pre-clearance requires a jurisdiction to receive prior approval of the Attorney General or a superior court before conducting certain aspects of city business.

The bill was amended in the House policy committee to remove the population threshold and instead places a city in pre-clearance if that city has had one or more violations of a state or federal voting rights laws in the previous 25 years. AWC believes this amendment will capture just two cities. One remaining avenue for a city to end up in pre-clearance relates to a failure to comply with an obligation to provide data to the UW repository, created in the bill.

SB 5597 now moves to the House appropriations committee.