News

Online PCO Candidates Must Re-File Due to SoS Error

May 13, 2020

PCO candidates who filed online on Monday and Tuesday must re-file their candidacy paperwork online due to Secretary of State error, according to State Party Chair Tina Podlodowski.

"On Monday we received reports that the SoS's VoteWA system was accepting Democratic Precinct Committee Officer candidacy filings that did not comply with WAC 434-215-021. The filings MUST require a candidate to affirmatively state and declare that they are a member of either the Republican or Democratic Party - otherwise, the PCO election(s) would be declared constitutionally unlawful" said Podlodowski in an email to local party leaders.

Accordingly, PCO candidates who filed on Monday and Tuesday with the Secretary of State's online candidate filing portal must re-file their candidacy paperwork by 4:00 pm on Friday, May 15, 2020.

Candidates should be alerted of the following potential issues they may encounter:

  1. After an online filing, a candidate should receive an email confirmation of their online filing. If you do not receive a confirmation, it may be because the "queuing system" for county auditor offices is not working correctly.
  2. There are reports of a "white screen of death" that appears during the process (in particular for candidates who pay a filing fee (which does not include PCO candidates --- filing is free for PCOs.))
  3. There are reports that the required affirmation statements ("I declare that I am a Democrat...") are still not appearing during the filing process. If you encounter this, it is recommended that you "clear your cache" and try again. Perform an internet search for the name of your computer/device's internet browser and "clear cache" to obtain detailed instructions on what to do.

If you encounter problems when re-filing a PCO candidacy online, please take a screenshot of the issue and send the screenshot to the State Party's data team via email. The subject of the message should include "VoteWA Issue." (In the event the hyperlink does not work, the email address to use is data (at) wa-democrats.org.)

Chair Podlodowski will be sending a letter to the office of the SoS asking for a full and public accounting of ALL the issues relating to VoteWA.