News

OLYMPIA — Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs urges Washington’s voters to be wary of dubious election information, including deepfakes and other misinformation, that have already been spotted during the 2024 elections cycle.

“As we move through Washington’s August 6 Primary and toward the November 5 General Election, I am concerned that a deluge of manipulated and false information may be inserted into social media from foreign actors and other sources,” Secretary Hobbs said. “Artificial Intelligence is getting easier and cheaper to manipulate for a broad number of… Read more

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Library, in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Wisconsin State Library Agency, has been awarded a $249,500 National Leadership Grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for developing games-based library services. 

The Washington State Library’s “Empowering & Innovating Games-based Library Services: National Best Practices for Gaming Collections & Programming” project will span three years and will… Read more

OLYMPIA — The Washington state Combined Fund Drive (CFD), a charitable giving program administered by the Office of the Secretary of State, is celebrating 40 years of helping state employees and retirees contribute to philanthropic causes.   

The CFD is Washington state’s workplace-giving program for active and retired public employees. Public employees of state government and higher-education institutions donate through CFD to the charity of their… Read more

OLYMPIA — In the second year of a statewide funding program to help counties improve their elections security, the Washington state Office of the Secretary of State has provided approximately $2 million to 29 elections offices statewide, with final calculations pending.

The program’s third year of funding is now open. As in prior years, each county’s elections office can receive up to $80,000 to pay for improvements to local election security.

“County election officials and employees around the state work hard to ensure our election systems are fair and… Read more

OLYMPIA — Signature verification has been completed and certified by the Office of the Secretary of State for the following Initiative to the People:

The signatures have been verified by the Office of the Secretary of State Elections Division using a state-mandated process of examining a 3% random sample of submitted signatures. Sponsors of I-2066 submitted 533,005 signatures in support of the initiative. A review of the random sample of 15,991 signatures… Read more

OLYMPIA — The Washington state Office of the Secretary of State (OSOS) has invested in a large-scale campaign to highlight the safety and security of the state’s vote-by-mail process ahead of Washington’s August primary and November general election. Created with agency partner Happylucky, the campaign uses stylized, rooted-in-place imagery and animation to promote the integrity of a process that has enabled accessible and secure voting throughout Washington for more than a decade. This campaign’s positive messaging helps all Washington voters understand how vote-by-mail works, celebrate… Read more

OLYMPIA — Washington’s county elections offices will mail ballots by Friday and open official ballot drop boxes for the more than 4.8 million registered voters across Washington to participate in the August 6 Primary Election.

Ballots must be returned to a county drop box or voting center by 8 p.m. Aug. 6, or, if mailed using the postage-paid envelope included with every ballot, postmarked by Aug. 6 to be accepted. The U.S. Postal Service recommends mailing… Read more

OLYMPIA — Secretary of State Steve Hobbs has been elected the Treasurer of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), the nation’s oldest nonpartisan professional organization for elected officials.

Secretary Steve Hobbs was sworn in Friday, July 12, at the NASS 2024 Summer Conference in Puerto Rico.

Founded in 1904, NASS includes secretaries of state, lieutenant governors, and chief state election officials from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S.… Read more

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Archives announced this week that $537,759 will be distributed among 27 local government agencies through the Local Records Grant Program.

The Local Records Grant Program of the Washington State Archives, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, helps local government agencies upgrade technological resources for records management and better respond to requests for public records. Since its inception in 2005, the program has awarded… Read more

New digital document program enables quicker delivery and secure authentication of documents for use abroad

OLYMPIA — The Office of the Secretary of State has issued its first digital apostille to authenticate a document as part of a pilot program with the City University of Seattle and @Gov, Inc., a Virginia-based company.

An apostille is an authentication, similar to notarization, issued to documents for use in countries participating in the 1961 Hague Convention treaty that… Read more