An effort by Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs to track and refute viral online misinformation about elections has prompted loud objections from the state Republican Party.
The state GOP recently filed a formal complaint with the state Executive Ethics Board, accusing Hobbs of violating the constitution and his oath of office by hiring a tech firm to scour social media for harmful “narratives and threats” about Washington elections officials and voting.
Hobbs’ office signed a no-bid contract for nearly $273,000 in late May with the British artificial intelligence company Logically, as part of a new effort aimed at responding in real time to election misinformation and disinformation.
The GOP’s Nov. 30 complaint alleged the new effort amounts to “political surveillance” that allows Hobbs, a Democrat, “to suppress and abridge free speech on a massive scale.” In a news release, Jim Walsh, the state Republican Party chair, accused Hobbs of “snooping” on outspoken Republicans and unethically using taxpayer money for “harassment and attempted intimidation.”
Hobbs defended the contract in an interview, noting the social media posts are all public, and rejected the GOP claims as false and insulting.
“We are not suppressing anybody’s free speech. Unlike Jim Walsh, I actually put on a uniform and defended democracy,” Hobbs said, referring to his service in the U.S. Army and the Washington Army National Guard. “I guess maybe instead of putting out misinformation and relying on a person who makes pillows as your expert, maybe contact me.”
That was a reference to Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, whose conspiracy-laden conferences have attracted some conservative state lawmakers and Bill Bruch, the state GOP’s “election integrity” chair. Bruch, who also chairs the Skagit County Republican Party, has publicized the Hobbs ethics complaint on his Substack blog, calling the Logically deal evidence of “an Orwellian Totalitarian State.”
Formal complaint rejected
The GOP’s formal complaint has quickly fallen flat with the Executive Ethics Board.
“It was reviewed, and we did not open it for investigation based on — there was not enough to allege violations under the Ethics in Public Service Act,” said Kate Reynolds, the board’s executive director, referring to the state’s overarching ethics law governing conduct by public officials.
But the complaint is emblematic of distrust among many Republicans, in Washington and nationally, of efforts by government agencies and social media companies to combat online misinformation — a conflict that is sure to escalate as the 2024 election approaches.
In Oregon, a similar contract with Logically signed by Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade’s office has been denounced by Republican lawmakers and the Oregon GOP.
Such anti-misinformation campaigns by elections officials have been launched in large part in response to the lies pushed by ex-President Donald Trump and his allies about his 2020 election defeat, which led to threats against elections officials and to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
But Republicans and other critics have argued Big Tech, media and government are vastly overreaching in the name of fighting misinformation — stifling debate and legitimate news stories about elections and other politically charged subjects.
Walsh said he spoke with Hobbs in person and asked him to terminate the contract after reviewing public records that showed some of his own social media posts had been flagged by Logically as potentially problematic. Hobbs refused.
The state is paying Logically $272,838 for its services, starting in June 2023 and running through the 2024 election, according to a copy of the contract.
In exchange, Logically is searching social media platforms, including X, Facebook, Telegram, Truth Social and Rumble, for public posts that include “narratives and threats related to elections officials or the elections process in Washington.”
Logically provides regular alerts to the Secretary of State’s Office on such online chatter, which Hobbs said allows his staff to make decisions on whether to put out a response through news releases or its own social media messaging.
Flagged posts
For example, Logically flagged posts by people raising concerns over King County Elections replacing a tabulation server during the August primary.
The King County Republican Party complained that its observers were not notified of the server replacement. The party’s social media post linking to a KING 5 story about the flap was among those highlighted by Logically in a September alert to the Secretary of State’s Office, which said the “narrative” could “degrade confidence” in ballot counting and “generate calls for changes to elections procedures.”
In another example, Logically in July flagged people commenting on a KOMO News story about Pierce County elections officials testing voting equipment to ensure an accurate count in the August primary.
“Programmed for Bob Ferguson to win in 7 minutes and 33 seconds,” said one Facebook user. Another added: “Elections officials testing their own machines. That’s like police investigating themselves.”
The Logically report to Hobbs’ office said such narratives could hurt confidence in elections and “generate calls for Pierce County to use paper ballots and hand counting” “instead of electronic vote-counting machines.
Hobbs said he’s not interested in trying to get such posts deleted or suppressed. The goal, he said, is to monitor any potentially misleading narratives that are going viral so his office can respond.
“We need to know what is trending out there with the public, good or bad. And if it’s misinformation, if it’s a lie and it’s trending pretty high, we’ll reach out to the media, counties and other partners and push back on the false narrative,” Hobbs said.
The anti-disinformation effort is part of a new Information Security and Response division in Hobbs’ office, which aids county elections offices with cybersecurity improvements. The state Legislature earmarked $8 million to stand up the office this year and another $6.4 million in the 2023-25 budget to “counter false narratives surrounding election security and integrity.” (The state GOP complaint inaccurately claimed the Legislature had rejected the creation of the new office.)
A no-bid contract
The contract grant to Logically was not put out for competitive bidding. State law allows for some noncompetitive “sole-source” contracts, but says agencies must provide written justification for such deals and publicly post them at least 10 days before the contract’s proposed starting date.
Asked for documentation on the Logically contract’s sole-source justification, Derrick Nunnally, a spokesperson for Hobbs’ office, referred questions to South Puget Sound Community College, which handled the contract administration, he said, due to its larger staff. The contract includes a 15% fee paid to the college.
Kati Sagawa, a spokesperson for the college, said in an email Friday the college fulfilled the secretary of state’s request with “a client service contract that involved Logically.” Such contracts are exempt from state competitive bidding requirements.
Kylee Zabel, the director of the Information Security and Response unit, said she had become familiar with Logically’s work at a conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State. Emails posted by the GOP show she corresponded with representatives of the company talking about how to obtain a no-bid contract.
In addition to the searches for potential misinformation, Logically’s contract also says it will search for and report on any “threats to the life” of elections officials.
That’s not an idle fear as such threats have been increasing in recent years.
In December 2020, Washington’s then-elections director, Lori Augino, was threatened along with other elections workers by a website that labeled them “enemies of the people” and posted their photos and home addresses. “Your days are numbered,” the site warned. The apparent threat was reported to law enforcement.
Over the past two years, more than a dozen people nationally had been charged by a Justice Department unit tasked with stemming a rash of violent threats against elections workers, The Associated Press reported in August. A report by the Brennan Center for Justice, released that same month, found elections workers across the country have quit out of fear of violence and harassment.
Hobbs said that during his military deployments in Kosovo and Iraq, he saw violence permeating elections in those countries.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen here,” he said. “Democracy can be fragile if we allow lies and misinformation to run rampant.”
