State bill would ban guns at the ballot box, election offices
OLYMPIA — As passions surged and rhetoric hardened in the 2020 presidential election, a private citizen approached Snohomish County Auditor Garth Fell and offered security services to deter anyone who might cause a disruption at a voting center.
The citizen didn’t say they would be armed. But it was implied.
“I had to dissuade them,” Fell recalled.
Still, election workers and some voters shared with him their uneasiness of carrying out the process of tallying ballots in the open, for all to see, in such an intense environment.
And events this year — like an insurrection at the nation’s Capitol and rowdiness at local school board meetings — crystallized Fell’s desire to find a way to quell their concerns and boost their comfort.
A conversation with Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek, resulted in her drafting a bill to keep guns out of places where ballots are cast and counted. The legislation will be considered in the 2022 session that starts next month.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/state-bill-would-ban-guns-at-the-ballot-box-election-offices/