Candidate who lost Washington governor race by 13% ends fraud lawsuit, officials say

A Republican candidate who lost the Washington’s governor’s race by more than 13% has voluntarily dismissed his own election fraud lawsuit, officials said.

Loren Culp’s campaign dismissed his own case against Secretary of State Kim Wyman and cannot refile it, a spokesperson for the Washington State Office of the Attorney General told McClatchy News on Friday.

“This was a publicity stunt and fundraising tool masquerading as a legal claim,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement.

The campaign withdrew its case Thursday after the Attorney General’s Office had told its legal counsel that it intended to file a motion to dismiss it unless the campaign voluntarily dismissed the complaint by noon on Friday.

“The complaint warrants Rule 11 sanctions because it is legally and factually baseless and was filed with the improper purpose of undermining confidence in a free and fair election,” the Attorney General’s Office told Culp’s legal counsel in an email. “The complaint is legally baseless for multiple reasons.”

Officials also told Culp’s legal counsel that the claims were “factually baseless” and were “made with an improper purpose of undermining confidence in a free and fair election.”

The complaint was filed Dec. 10 against the Secretary of State and alleged that “the process by which this election was held was unlawful under both state and federal law,” McClatchy News reported. The state’s election results were certified on Dec. 2, and incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee won by 545,000 votes, according to McClatchy News.

“Defendants … have violated the right of equal protection guaranteed to plaintiff pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment by allowing an unlawful election to go forward, and by thereafter certifying the results of the election when they knew or should have known that the contest did not meet state or federal standards,” the complaint said.

Culp’s campaign said in the complaint that thousands of votes were being counted from dead people, people living out-of-state or who were otherwise ineligible to vote. Before the case was filed, Culp’s attorney Stephen Pidgeon alleged that “over 800,000 votes were tallied than eligible voters who appear in the voter registration database,” McClatchy News reported.

The Secretary of State’s Office refuted those claims in a Dec. 4 news release and said there was no evidence to suggest that ballots were cast for dead voters.

“No evidence has been presented to suggest that 10,000 ballots were cast for deceased voters, or 300,000 people who moved out of Washington state fraudulently voted as Mr. Pidgeon alleges,” Wyman’s statement said, according to McClatchy News. “Voter-roll maintenance is conducted on an ongoing basis by county election officials … We have safeguards in place before, during, and after each election, and conduct numerous audits throughout to ensure all election functions and processes are operating properly and accurately.”

This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Candidate who lost Washington governor race by 13% ends fraud lawsuit, officials say."