WA Rights Renewal is looking for people who would like to make a difference in WA state by holding our legislators, public servants, elections staff and everyone else accountable to the Constitution, The rule of law, contract law, and the common law.

Before WA Rights Renewal's actual creation date, we are looking for more like minded individuals interested in joining us to help turn WA back under the consent of the governed and will stand up for the rights of all Americans. The framework for this association is linked at the bottom of this post and anyone that wants to be involved can DM me directly. 

You can watch what the response/reaction (If any, which would be very revealing) to this comment is on TVW in real time. Here is the information for when that will occur.

Committee: State Government & Tribal Relations
Date/Time: 1/14/2025 1:30:00 PM
Bill/Issue: HB 1030 Counted ballot audits
Location: House Hearing Rm E and Virtual

Watch Live Here:Committee Sign In - Remote Written
Testimony Registration

Thank you for submitting your written comments on HB 1030 Counted ballot audits. 
Your comments will be made available to legislative committee members and staff of the committee, and will be included in the legislative record for bill and meeting archival purposes, but will not be used as part
of testimony summary materials on the bill report.

The text of your submission is below:

Ensuring the Security and Integrity of Washington's Elections

Honorable Members of the Legislature,

This testimony seeks to articulate critical concerns regarding House Bill 1030, which, while
addressing procedural election audits, fails to adhere to essential federal mandates under Executive
Order (EO) 13800. This legislative gap undermines the cybersecurity, transparency, and integrity of
Washington State’s election systems, posing significant risks to both public trust and national
security.

Federal Compliance Imperatives

Since the issuance of EO 13800 on May 11, 2017, critical infrastructure entities, including election
systems, have been legally obligated to comply with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) and
related standards, including NIST SP 800-53, 800-161, 800-171, 800-30, and 800-37. These
frameworks establish stringent requirements to safeguard the integrity of critical systems:

Independent Third-Party Assessments:

Independent evaluations must be conducted before significant events, such as elections, to validate
compliance with NIST SP 800 controls. These assessments are crucial for ensuring system
security, auditability, and resilience against potential vulnerabilities.

Stringent Security Controls:

Election systems must implement robust protocols for encryption, access management, and
forensic accountability to mitigate risks of unauthorized access and malware exploitation.

Supply Chain Risk Management:

Vendors involved in critical infrastructure, such as those providing election-related services, must
adhere to comprehensive supply chain controls outlined in NIST SP 800-161 to mitigate
vulnerabilities.

Systemic Non-Compliance in Washington State

Washington State’s current compliance frameworks reveal critical deficiencies that contravene federal cybersecurity requirements:

Self-Assessed Vendor Compliance:

State compliance matrices allow vendors to self-assess their adherence to cybersecurity standards,
bypassing the independent third-party audits mandated under NIST SP 800-53A. This practice
weakens the oversight needed to secure election systems effectively.

Dependency on Vulnerable Components:

Vendors, such as CrowdStrike, rely on third-party libraries like RapidJSON and FastJSON, which
are known to be susceptible to exploitation by Advanced Persistent Threat actors, such as APT-41
(China). The absence of rigorous compliance testing exposes critical vulnerabilities.

Unlawful Restrictions on Cybersecurity Transparency:

Restricting cybersecurity data under the guise of proprietary trade secret protections violates federal
transparency mandates. The trade secrets doctrine does not supersede national security
requirements or federally mandated disclosures.

Barriers to Auditability:

Senate Bill 5459, which restricts public access to cast vote records, directly violates the audit and
accountability requirements outlined in NIST SP 800-53A. These restrictions conflict with EO 13800
and undermine the principles of transparency and oversight in election integrity.

Supremacy Clause Violations:

By prioritizing state statutes over federal mandates, Washington State contravenes the Supremacy
Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) of the United States Constitution. Federal law preempts state
legislation that conflicts with national security directives, rendering SB 5459 unconstitutional and
void.

National Security and Constitutional Implications

The persistent failure to comply with federal cybersecurity directives jeopardizes the security of
Washington’s elections and erodes public confidence. Elections conducted outside the scope of EO
13800 and NIST CSF have been unlawful since May 2017.

As affirmed in Marbury v. Madison and 16 American Jurisprudence, statutes repugnant to the
Constitution are void at their inception and do not require judicial invalidation to be disregarded.

Conclusion

Washington State’s current legislative and procedural shortcomings must be rectified to bring its
election systems into compliance with federal standards. Failure to do so undermines both state
obligations and the foundational principles of our constitutional democracy. This bill does not
address bringing elections under the SOS back into compliance with federal law. There are MANY
RCWs that have made following the NIST CSF and EO 13800 impossible and even went so far as
to say that any third party having access to election machines would result in them being
decertified. This state has actively side-stepped federal law and national security protocols for our
critical infrastructure and is nothing short of willful negligence. Public record requests have been
sent to every county and the OSOS, and no records of compliance testing since EO 13800s
implementation exists. This is a clear and present danger to the United States of America and It is
imperative to act now to ensure the security, transparency, and integrity of our electoral processes
by introducing a bill that restores the national security of our elections and the United States.

WA Rights Renewal Framework: