Poll Watch: De-Escalate Washington’s I‑940 enjoys overwhelming support among voters

An ini­tia­tive that would require law enforce­ment to receive vio­lence de-esca­la­tion and men­tal-health train­ing in addi­tion to chang­ing the legal stan­dard for use of dead­ly force enjoys over­whelm­ing sup­port among vot­ers, a new poll has found.

De-Esca­late Wash­ing­ton, the coali­tion spear­head­ing the ini­tia­tive, announced today that it had com­mis­sioned EMC Research to gauge pub­lic sup­port for the mea­sure. EMC’s sur­vey of sev­en hun­dred and forty like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers was in the field from Feb­ru­ary 8th-15th. The firm read the bal­lot title to respon­dents and found that 68% of like­ly vot­ers sup­port the mea­sure, while 21% are opposed.

The poll has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.6%.

NPI is a coali­tion mem­ber and has tak­en a posi­tion sup­port­ing Ini­tia­tive 940.

The coali­tion’s poll results are very sim­i­lar to NPI’s find­ings from June of 2017, when we also read the bal­lot title to vot­ers. This was the text of our question:

There may be an ini­tia­tive on next year’s bal­lot con­cern­ing law enforce­ment. The descrip­tion reads as fol­lows: This mea­sure would require law enforce­ment to receive vio­lence de-esca­la­tion, men­tal health, and first-aid train­ing, and pro­vide first-aid; and change stan­dards for use of dead­ly force, adding a “good faith” stan­dard and inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion. If this mea­sure were to appear on the 2018 statewide bal­lot, would you def­i­nite­ly vote in favor, prob­a­bly vote in favor, prob­a­bly vote against, or def­i­nite­ly vote against it?

Answers were as follows:

• Yes: 69%
  • Def­i­nite­ly vote in favor: 45%
  • Prob­a­bly vote in favor: 24%
• No: 28%
  • Prob­a­bly vote against: 14%
  • Def­i­nite­ly vote against: 14%
• Unde­cid­ed: 2%

NPI’s sur­vey of 887 like­ly 2018 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from June 27th-28th, 2017; all respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed via land­line. Our poll has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

Here is a chart show­ing how the two sur­veys compare.

Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman announced last month that Ini­tia­tive 940 had qual­i­fied as an ini­tia­tive to the Leg­is­la­ture for 2018.

The Leg­is­la­ture has three options:

• Adopt I‑940, in which case it would become law;
• Do noth­ing and let it go to the bal­lot for vot­ers to consider;
• Send it to the Novem­ber 2018 bal­lot with an alternative.

The Sen­ate Law & Jus­tice Com­mit­tee and House Pub­lic Safe­ty Com­mit­tee will hold a joint hear­ing on the mea­sure tomor­row in Olympia at 7 PM.