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Washougal mayor defends social media post

Doug Flanagan, Camas-Washougal Post-Record | Published on 11/4/2024

https://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2024/nov/04/washougal-mayor-defends-social-media-post-urging-voters-to-drop-ballots-at-unofficial-box-inside-conservative-leaning-center/

Washougal Mayor David Stuebe, a Republican candidate for Washington state’s Legislative District 17, Position 2 seat, is defending his recent Facebook post urging voters to drop their ballots at an unofficial box located inside a faith-based homeschool resource center in Vancouver, a location Stuebe described as a “conservative-leaning” site.

On Monday, Stuebe said his Facebook post was an effort to “be a part of the solution, not the problem.”

“As everyone is probably aware, there was a ballot drop box in Fisher’s Landing that was set on fire in the early morning hours Monday,” Stuebe stated in the Oct. 31 Facebook post. “There is a lot of concern about continuing to use these boxes, yet taking one’s ballot to the elections office might be too far. There is another option. Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center has a ballot box that is safely inside their building. You can drop your ballot there and they will transport them to the elections office each day.”

Two days prior to Stuebe’s post, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey warned on his Facebook page that the box inside Firmly Planted “is not an official ballot drop box and is not affiliated with the Clark County Elections Office” and told The Columbian, The Post-Record’s sister paper, that, while he isn’t questioning the good intentions of people at Firmly Planted who are collecting the ballots, he would advise voters that “even people with good intentions don’t follow through sometimes” and said county elections officials “strongly encourage voters to not give their ballots to anyone they don’t know and trust.”

Stuebe’s Facebook post, which came at the height of several highly contested federal, state and local elections, rubbed some voters the wrong way.

Camas resident Jim Carruth wrote to The Post-Record last week to say he was “disturbed by (Stuebe’s) response to the voter suppression burning of ballots in our county.”

“As the mayor of Washougal, David Stuebe should be working with the county auditor and not hyper-partisan groups around election security,” Carruth stated in a letter to the editor. “Please call the Washougal City Council and voice your vote of ‘no confidence’ in Stuebe’s directions to voters to drop ballots at an unofficial ballot box. This is a perfect example of why he can’t remain mayor should he be elected. He doesn’t understand his job as mayor or his job as a future legislator.”

The Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center is under the umbrella of the Firmly Planted Family nonprofit organization, which states on its website that it “exists to encourage and equip Christ-centered families to be firmly planted in the rich soil of God’s Word.” The Firmly Planted resource center, which offers supplemental classes to local homeschool families, was co-founded by Heidi St. John, who lost her bid for Washington’s Third Congressional District in the 2022 primary election. The center does not hide its right-wing political affiliations. On Oct. 21, the homeschool resource center hosted a partisan forum called “Win Washington,” which featured Republican candidates Dave Riechert, Joe Kent, John Ley and Stuebe.

Stuebe said Monday that, despite urging voters to drop their ballots at the Firmly Planted site, he has not actually seen the box inside the homeschool resource center.

“You have to get access by security to go in there to drop it off. This is what Heidi told me,” Stuebe said. “It’s very secure, probably more secure than our county office. This isn’t the first time they’ve (offered a ballot box) — they’ve done this for like the last three voting sessions, so I just assumed that they’ve done this before, it’s legal to do, and they take all the secure steps. They’re trying to provide a solution, and I support that.”

Collecting ballots to drop off at an official ballot counting site, also known as “ballot harvesting,” is not illegal in Washington state, but Clark County officials have warned voters against trusting ballot harvesters they don’t absolutely trust.

“I really want to discourage voters from giving their ballot to anyone that they don’t know, trust and have a lot of confidence that that person will return the ballot here to the elections office,” Kimsey told KOIN News last week.

Stuebe said he trusts that the people at Firmly Planted will deliver on their promise to deliver the ballots safely.

“I totally trust what (Firmly Planted is) trying to do,” Stuebe said. “Yeah, they might be a conservative-leaning school, so the Dems, of course, have to fight that, and that’s just what just kills me right now. I am so tired of this ‘R’ and ‘D’ stuff. It’s like, what happened to Americans? Let’s just work together. We have a problem. We got somebody out there blowing up ballot boxes, so let’s (find a) solution.”

Stuebe said he believes people who have questioned whether a mayor who represents people from all political corners should be telling voters to take their ballots to a “conservative-leaning” center are not looking out for voters’ best interests but are, instead, involved in a smear campaign against him.

“People are getting desperate and ugly and divisive, and this is a plot,” Stuebe said. “Any time they can find a little something on me, they blow it out of proportion and lie about it, just trying to cause an issue … My opponent’s side is (looking) for anything to run a smear campaign.”

Stuebe added that he still believes the Firmly Planted resource center is a safe place for voters to drop off their ballots.

“I’m not totally educated on what harvesting is and all that stuff,” Stuebe said. “All I heard was that they are offering a secure place to drop off a ballot that’s half the distance from where the voting office is, and that they will have security there. They collect the ballots every day, and they take them in, and it’s legal. I put it on my Facebook page as an option, (but) I agree with what our county auditor says — don’t do it if you don’t feel like it’s not safe and you don’t know them, you don’t trust them. But I trust them, so I threw it out there.”

Stuebe added that he doubts the safety of Clark County’s official ballot boxes following an Oct. 28 arson attack on a ballot box in Vancouver’s Fishers Landing neighborhood that damaged hundreds of ballots.

“The police came back and reported that they thought that this was going to continue, so hearing that, no, I didn’t think they were safe,” Stuebe said Monday.

Clark County elections officials said last week that they have identified and contacted voters associated with nearly all of the roughly 500 damaged or destroyed ballots in the burned ballot box. Election officials also have increased security at the ballot boxes. In addition to an increased police presence near Vancouver-area ballot boxes, county elections officials have stationed ballot box observers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at each of the 22 drop boxes throughout the county.

Kimsey called the ballot box fire “an attack on American democracy,” and has urged residents to report suspicious activity surrounding ballot boxes by contacting 911 for immediate emergencies and 311 for non-emergencies.

Ballots are due by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5. Voters can mail ballots via the U.S. Postal Service in the postage-paid envelope that came with their ballots or drop their ballots in official ballot boxes throughout the county. A list of locations is available on the Elections website clarkvotes.org.

To check to see if a ballot in Washington state has been received, visit votewa.gov.

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