(The Center Square) – Washington GOP Chair and State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, has filed a federal lawsuit alongside Franklin County Auditor Matt Beaton against a consent decree agreed to by the Secretary of State’s Office that overturned a 30-day voter residency requirement in place since the state constitution was ratified in 1889.
Announcing the lawsuit filed in U.S. Federal Court of Western Washington, Walsh wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that to he did so to “reverse a shady scheme to destroy the State Constitution’s rule that a person be a WA resident for 30 days before registering to vote. This urgent election integrity issue needs to be fixed now.”
The Center Square first broke news of the consent decree in June, just days before SOS codified the removal of the residency requirement through election rulemaking, though the provision is still found in the state constitution. The lawsuit filed last year by the Washington Alliance for Retired Americans against the residency requirement argued that it violated federal law, in which no residency requirements can be imposed on federal elections.