Welcome to our Washington Voter Rights Coalition. Our mission is to protect the rights of voters here in Washington state. Voters have a fundamental and essential right to vote.

Article 1, Section 19 of the Washington State Constitution states that “All Elections shall be free and equal, and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

Unfortunately, an unwise Initiative to the Legislature, called IL26-126, has recently been filed that would, if passed by either the legislature or the People, prevent tens of thousands – and perhaps even hundreds of thousands - of legal Washington voters from being able to vote. The Initiative would do this by requiring all 5 million of Washington’s existing legally registered voters to get an “Enhanced” Drivers License to remain on the voting rolls.

Currently, less than 30% of Washington voters have an Enhanced Drivers license. A May 6, 2025 article indicated that only 29% of Washington drivers have an enhanced drivers license.

We, the remaining 70% of legal Washington voters, have a normal Washington Drivers License. The Initiative would remove at least 3 million of us legal voters from the voter rolls. To get back on the Voter Rolls, we will be required to visit our county auditor office in person and provide “Proof of Citizenship.” The two most common ways we can provide Proof of Citizenship is by showing the Auditor a currently valid US Passport or by showing them an original certified US Birth Certificate. About 1 million of us who lack an Enhanced Drivers License have a valid US Passport. So they should have little problem getting back on the voter rolls. This still leaves 2 million legal Washington voters who will be required to provide an original certified US Birth Certificate. This is where the problem begins.

About 8% of all legal Washington voters do not have “easy” access to their original certified US Birth Certificate – or their original Birth Certificate has a different name on it than their current name. These 400,000 legal Washington voters will need to take extra steps to get back on the voter rolls.

This group of unlucky voters includes married women who changed their last name when they got married. They will need to find and present their official Marriage Certificate in addition to their original Birth Certificate. If they got divorced or remarried, they will need to also provide their official Divorce Papers and Second Marriage documents. The League of Women Voters has already filed a complaint in federal court in April 2025 – and won – over this restriction of their voting rights. They will almost certainly win again should this Initiative become law in our state in 2026.

But there are many other people besides women who will have a difficult time obtaining their original valid Birth Certificate in order to get back on the Voter Rolls. This includes homeless people, poor people, minorities, senior citizens and people who have moved a lot of times – especially people who have moved from other states to Washington state. The total number of legal Washington voters who will not be able to meet this new “proof of citizenship” requirement is in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

The Proof of Citizenship Initiative does not solve the actual problem of inaccurate voter rolls

The sponsors of this Initiative claim this new “proof of citizenship” requirement is needed to clean up the voter rolls in our state. They are correct in their assertion that our voter rolls in Washington are a mess – maybe among the worst and least accurate voter rolls in the nation. The main reason our voter rolls are a mess is that Washington Election officials have not done a good job keeping track of people who move out of the county and or people who die. There are huge numbers of people on the voter rolls in each county who should not be there. But this Initiative will do nothing to fix this problem of voting officials not doing their jobs. In fact, this Initiative, if passed, may make this problem even worse because county election officials will need to spend huge amounts of time processing documents from millions of legal voters – time taken away from actually cleaning up the voting rolls.

The second very real problem is that for several years, the Washington State Department of Licensing (WA DOL) has been registering non-citizens to vote when they applied for a Washington Drivers License. This is a clear violation of federal law – which specifically requires non-citizens to be given “special” licenses (not normal Drivers Licenses) and prohibits non-citizens from being registered to vote. In short, the Department of Licensing has been and continues to be violating federal laws.

The solution to this problem is to either replace our existing state government with a government willing to comply with federal election laws – or get the US Department of Justice out here and take the Washington DOL to federal court to force them to comply with federal election laws.

The Proof of Citizenship Initiative will make our elections less secure

This is perhaps the most important and most overlooked problem with the Proof of Citizenship Initiative. Our elections here in Washington state are already not secure. It is impossible to have secure elections with a mandatory Vote by Mail system. It is impossible to have secure elections when our computers are not secure, our phones are not secure and the Internet itself is not secure. We will not be able to improve the security of our elections until we first take the time to learn about REAL COMPUTER SECURITY and REAL DATA SECURITY.

This is one of the central goals of our Voters Rights Coalition. We have an entire section on what it will take to actually have more secure elections in our state. Even if you are not a computer expert, you need to learn enough about computer security and data security to make intelligent decisions about what will create greater security and what will result in less security.

Real Election Security comes from Decentralizing Data – not centralizing data

The main point of confusion is that it is common for the general public (including our elected officials) to make the mistake that centralizing data will result in greater security. Computer experts have known for at least 30 years that this is not true. Centralizing data into an inter-connected national database, which is the goal of “Real ID” (which includes the “Enhanced Washington Drivers License) makes the system less secure because it is easier for hackers to hack a single centralized system than to hack thousands of decentralized systems. This is what the promoters of the Proof of Citizenship Initiative have failed to understand. In promoting the “Enhanced” Drivers License system, they are promoting an extremely insecure centralized national database system called Real ID. This is not merely our opinion. This is the opinion of the world’s leading computer and data security experts.

One way to understand the drawbacks of centralized databases is to imagine that for the sake of convenience, you decided to change your locks so that the lock on your car and the lock on your office of business front door was the same as the lock on your home. No one would really do this because all it would take is for a bad guy to steal this single key and he would gain access to your car and your business in addition to gaining access to your home.

Now imagine that everyone in Washington state had the same key to their homes, their businesses and their cars. Any bad guy with this key would have access to every home, every car and every business in our state.

Finally, imagine that every home, business and car in the nation could be accessed using this same special key. Imagine we are told it is OK because this special key will be closely guarded and only a few thousand people would have access to or have copies of this special key. This is exactly what Real ID is – a single national database that can be accessed by thousands of people (election officials in every state as well as thousands of Department of Homeland Security agents) who have a copy of this key. No sane person who understands real computer security would be in favor of such a system – which is why our nation’s leading computer security experts have for more than 20 years repeatedly warned against the creation of such a system. Sadly, our political leaders are no better than the general public in understanding computer security. So we have misinformed people promoting the expansion of Real ID here in Washington state.

Benefits of a Decentralized Locally Controlled Database System

Currently, Washington state voter registrations are handled locally by each county. They can communicate with and share data with other counties but typically only in pairs with one county auditor talking directly to another county auditor. They can also contribute to a state database. But each county retains control over their own data and each county has their own security processes with their own access rules and systems of locks and keys.

Danger of a Centralized Government Controlled National Mega Database System

Real ID (aka “enhanced” drivers licenses”) are still registered in each county. But the county database must be connected to the national Real ID system which allows any election agent in the nation to access the county database. Instead of isolated local databases, Real ID creates an interlocking combination of databases which in turn becomes a single mega data base with a single key used by everyone and thus has a single point of failure where any mistake by any election agent can compromise the entire election system.

As bad as normal Washington Drivers Licenses are, they are not part of this centralized Real ID national database. As bad as our county voter registration databases are, they are not part of the centralized Real ID national database. But if this “Proof of Citizenship” initiative passes, they will be. In short, instead of making our election system more secure, this initiative, should it pass, will make our election system much less secure – because it will make our data much less secure.

Is this Initiative really about enforcing Real ID?

The Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2025, without debate, as a rider to an important Defense spending bill. It is administered by the Department of Homeland Security. Despite language in the bill specifically stating that states will not be required to join and that it will not create a national voter database, all 50 states have been required to join and it is in the process of creating a national voter database. That is the real goal of the Real ID promoters.

The promoters of the “Proof of Citizenship” Initiative claim that if we do not like Real ID, we can still get back on the voter rolls – either by taking our passport to the County Auditor or by taking our original Birth Certificate to the auditor.

But this is not just about getting back on the voter rolls. This is data mining on a massive scale. The county auditors will be required to make digital copies of these records and these digital records will eventually be loaded into the centralized Real ID national database where they will be accessible by thousands of DHS agents. It is not only one more step to a Police State, it is one more step to a less secure voting system.

Instead of promoting Real ID, we should be boycotting Real ID

Being a computer security expert, and because I care about the security of our elections and the future of our country. I have refused to comply with the Real ID mandates. If this means I can not get on a plane, then I won’t get on a plane. (actually we can still get on a plane but we need to go through a slower line and ask a couple of extra questions. That is OK with me. ) If this means I no longer get to go to Canada, then I no longer will go to Canada. I have not been to Canada since they started requiring Real ID Drivers Licenses at the Canadian border.

My wife and daughter still go to Canada. But they both have US Passports. The good news is that US Passports are not part of the centralized Real ID national database. If you want to go to Canada or Mexico, you should get a US Passport and use that. US Passports will still data mine you. But your data is stored on the passport itself – rather than in a single national Real ID database accessible to thousands of DHS agents. US Passports are handled by the US Department of State rather than by the Department of Homeland Security. US passports are therefore much more secure than Real ID Drivers Licenses.

If you really want election security, you should turn in your Real ID drivers license and replace it with a normal Washington Drivers License – and then if you want to travel, get a US passport. We should also stop illegal online vote curing here in Washington state. 

Five Problems with the Washington Proof of Citizenship Initiative

In order to help you learn more about and share the serious flaws of this Initiative with other concerned citizens, we have divided the problems with this Initiative into 5 broad categories:

Problem #1 It would disenfranchise thousands of voters

Problem #2 It would make our elections less secure.

Problem #3: It would violate several federal election laws

Problem #4 There are many less Intrusive and more secure alternatives

Problem #5 There have been many false claims made about this Initiative

The worst of these false claims is the claim that “polls show support for this monster.” What the polls actually show support for is requiring normal ID such as your normal Drivers License when voting. They do not show support for either creating a national centralized Real ID Database or for disenfranchising tens of thousands of legal Washington voters.

Because it reduces election security rather than increasing election security, the push for a centralized national voter database was rejected by the Nixon administration, the Carter administration, the Reagan administration and the Clinton administration. That is two Republican Presidents and two Democrat Presidents. Ronald Reagan actually called the idea “the mark of the beast.” So this is not a partisan issue. It is more of a Voter Rights issue versus a Deep State Control issue.

Unfortunately, a few people in both political parties lost their senses after 911 and passed a very bad “Real ID” law in 2005. Thankfully, there is still strong opposition to a national centralized database in both political parties.

To read more about the five problems with the Proof of Citizenship Initiative, click on the menu items in our main menu. If you would like to host a presentation on Voting rights with your local community group, fill out the Voting Rights Forum form in the main menu. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you!