Washington State - Secretary of State Kim Wyman speaking to our club on Friday, April 13th. The Secretary is the 15th Secretary of State in Washington and was elected in 2012. She is serving her second term and is the second female Secretary of State in Washington history.
The Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections, corporations, charity filings, the Washington State Library, the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library, the Washington State Archives, and a number of special programs including the Combined Fund Drive for charitable giving by public employees, the Address Confidentiality Program to protect survivors of domestic violence and stalking, and Legacy Washington, an oral history and exhibit program that tells the state's most intriguing stores.
Washington elections were not hacked by the Russian Cyber Security interest because early on in the process, her team discovered some bad actors were trying to get into our state system. When the tech team started seeing some strange activities on their website, her terrific cyber security team shut these sites down by prohibiting some of the IP addresses from being on the elections site.
Homeland Security acknowledged that 21 states had attempts on their election websites but wouldn't share the information with any of the Secretary of State's. It took a great deal of time and effort to get Homeland Security to cooperate. Two states that were unable to with stand the cyber attacks were Arizona and Illinois but it apparently did not affect the outcome of the elections in those states. Secretary Wyman commented that dealing with Homeland Security is a lot like dating. They are getting closer to a marriage.
Recently, the state was awarded $8 million to upgrade the election systems. The funding is indicative of the Federal Government's priority to bolster protection against election interference. In the most recent elections, 79 people have been identified as voting in more than one county or in multiple states. None of been prosecuted so far.
The Secretary of State's office has 280 employees in 28 locations throughout the state. The Secretary lives in Thurston County with her husband and two children.