Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the writ­ten ver­sion of the tes­ti­mo­ny pre­pared by NPI’s founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor in sup­port of NPI’s 2023 bill to repeal Tim Eyman’s “advi­so­ry votes.” To watch Andrew deliv­er the ver­bal ver­sion, check out this TVW record­ing of the hear­ing on Sen­ate Bill 5082. 

Good after­noon, Chair Hunt and Mem­bers of the Committee!

For the record, my name is Andrew Vil­leneuve. I’m the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, a 501(c)(4) non­prof­it work­ing to raise every­one’s qual­i­ty of life through insight­ful research and imag­i­na­tive advo­ca­cy. NPI is cel­e­brat­ing its twen­ti­eth anniver­sary this year and is based in Redmond.

On behalf of our team at NPI, includ­ing our board and staff, I thank you for hear­ing this bill today, and I thank Sen­a­tor Kud­er­er for prime spon­sor­ing it.

I also thank Sec­re­tary of State Steve Hobbs for his support.

The over­ar­ch­ing objec­tive of this bill is to make it eas­i­er to vote in Wash­ing­ton by elim­i­nat­ing “advi­so­ry votes” from our bal­lots. Con­trary to their name, “advi­so­ry votes” are not advi­so­ry. They are a form of dis­in­for­ma­tion invent­ed by Tim Eyman to pol­lute our bal­lots with anti-tax mes­sages that tax­pay­ers have to pay for.

Today, I’m delight­ed to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sum­ma­rize the prin­ci­ples on which our bill has been writ­ten and explain why it’s crit­i­cal to the cause of vot­ing jus­tice to pass this leg­is­la­tion and repeal “advi­so­ry votes.”

There are four key prin­ci­ples under­pin­ning Sen­ate Bill 5082 and House Bill 1158:

Prin­ci­ple #1: The bal­lot is sacred and should be free of propaganda 

From our pol­i­cy brief:

“Advi­so­ry votes” are not bal­lot mea­sures. They are anti-tax mes­sages dressed up to look like bal­lot mea­sures. They can­not be used to mea­sure any­thing because they vio­late every sin­gle guide­line for ask­ing unbi­ased questions.

Ridicu­lous­ly, due to Tim Eyman’s for­mu­la­tion of the trig­ger that sets up “advi­so­ry votes”, bills that are not even tax increas­es but nev­er­the­less have the effect of increas­ing state rev­enue, like the Reusable Bag Bill or the rescis­sion of the Boe­ing tax breaks, are being pre­sent­ed to vot­ers as tax increas­es when they are not.

Prin­ci­ple #2: Dis­in­for­ma­tion cre­ates a bar­ri­er to vot­ing, sup­press­ing turnout

From our pol­i­cy brief:

At elec­tion time, we want every­body to vote a com­plete bal­lot and par­tic­i­pate ful­ly. Tim Eyman’s mali­cious­ly word­ed “advi­so­ry votes” are a bar­ri­er to secur­ing more robust par­tic­i­pa­tion because they con­fuse and mis­lead the elec­torate, negat­ing enthu­si­asm for vot­ing and acti­vat­ing an unhealthy, cyn­i­cal state of mind.

Research has shown that schemes like “advi­so­ry votes” inter­rupt the act of cast­ing a bal­lot. “Advi­so­ry votes” are not, to use a med­ical metaphor, benign. They are malignant.

Prin­ci­ple #3: Every­thing on the bal­lot should have mean­ing… can­di­date elections/ballot mea­sures and opin­ion polling don’t mix!

From our pol­i­cy brief:

Word­ing changes will not make “advi­so­ry votes” wor­thy of a place on our bal­lots. The bal­lot is sim­ply not an appro­pri­ate place to con­duct pub­lic opin­ion research of any kind. The only items on our bal­lots should be can­di­date elec­tions and bind­ing bal­lot mea­sures (ini­tia­tives, ref­er­en­da, and con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments, with the local equiv­a­lent being propo­si­tions and char­ter amendments).

Every deci­sion we make when we fill in an oval on our bal­lots should influ­ence pub­lic pol­i­cy or our representation.

Prin­ci­ple #4: We need real tools for mak­ing the Legislature’s work more transparent

From our pol­i­cy brief:

In addi­tion to repeal­ing “advi­so­ry votes”, our bill would make use­ful infor­ma­tion about the fis­cal deci­sions leg­is­la­tors have made avail­able online so that vot­ers can under­stand what bud­get­ing deci­sions are being made on their behalf. Each mea­sure that increas­es or decreas­es state rev­enue would receive a short fis­cal impact state­ment no longer than a let­ter to the edi­tor. Infor­ma­tion sum­ma­riz­ing the state’s finances and pro­vid­ing con­text from past fis­cal years would also be pro­vid­ed in graph­i­cal and tab­u­lar format.

NPI is a rec­og­nized leader in the field of pub­lic opin­ion research, with a decade of expe­ri­ence design­ing and exe­cut­ing sur­veys. Our polling is cred­i­ble and accu­rate because we rig­or­ous­ly fol­low the sci­en­tif­ic method. We often explain the impor­tance of neu­tral­i­ty in ques­tion word­ing to peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in know­ing how to gauge the cred­i­bil­i­ty of polling. Neu­tral word­ing is essen­tial: you can’t find out what peo­ple think if you tell them what to think first.

Because Eyman designed “advi­so­ry votes” to be prej­u­di­cial­ly word­ed, they can’t be used as a means of mea­sur­ing how vot­ers feel about the Leg­is­la­ture’s fis­cal deci­sions. “Advi­so­ry votes” are akin to the nefar­i­ous push polls that crop up at elec­tion time from oper­a­tives try­ing to bring down a can­di­date that they oppose.

There has nev­er been an advi­so­ry vote on “advi­so­ry votes” them­selves, but we know from our research that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans favor get­ting rid of them.

We’ve asked repeat­ed­ly in our statewide and local polls if vot­ers want “advi­so­ry votes” repealed, and they have con­sis­tent­ly said yes.

Here’s an exam­ple of a ques­tion that we have asked in our statewide polls:

ASKED STATEWIDE IN OCTOBER OF 2020 BEFORE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

QUESTION: The Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture is con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion that would abol­ish the non-bind­ing statewide advi­so­ry votes that are trig­gered when­ev­er a bill is passed that increas­es state rev­enue. Pro­po­nents of advi­so­ry votes say they allow vot­ers to vote on tax increas­es and trans­form the voter’s pam­phlet into a tax increase report card, enabling vot­ers to find out what Olympia is doing to them. Oppo­nents say that advi­so­ry votes are actu­al­ly cost­ly push polls designed to con­fuse the pub­lic, which ought to be elim­i­nat­ed to save valu­able tax dol­lars and pre­vent legit­i­mate mea­sures and can­di­date elec­tions from being pushed to the back of the bal­lot. Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose abol­ish­ing non-bind­ing advi­so­ry votes?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port repeal (abol­ish): 42% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 22%
  • Some­what sup­port: 20%
• Oppose repeal (keep): 22% 
  • Some­what oppose: 10%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 12%
• Not sure: 35%

Our sur­vey of six hun­dred and ten like­ly 2020 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Wednes­day, Octo­ber 14th through Thurs­day, Octo­ber 15th, 2020.

It uti­lized a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respondents.

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 4.0% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

And here’s an exam­ple of a ques­tion we asked in one of our local polls. This ques­tion was seen by vot­ers in King Coun­ty. The for­mat of this poll allowed us to offer a visu­al to go with the ques­tion, and we pro­vid­ed an image of what “advi­so­ry votes” look like, with­out any annotations:

ASKED COUNTYWIDE IN OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2022 BEFORE MIDTERM ELECTION

QUESTION: Each year since 2012, vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State have been asked to respond to items on the bal­lot labeled “advi­so­ry votes” which con­cern rev­enue-relat­ed laws already passed by the Legislature.

Activist Tim Eyman, who wrote the 2007 ini­tia­tive that cre­at­ed “advi­so­ry votes,” says that they put tax increas­es on the bal­lot for the vot­ers to learn about and vote on, and are worth the cost because leg­is­la­tors have sab­o­taged the people’s right to ref­er­en­dum through the overuse of the emer­gency clause, bond­ing of tax rev­enue, and oth­er tac­tics. Eyman strong­ly favors con­tin­u­ing “advi­so­ry votes” and has filed law­suits request­ing that the courts order state offi­cials to put more of them on the ballot. 

Vot­ing jus­tice advo­cates say that “advi­so­ry votes” are a bar­ri­er to vot­ing because they are poor­ly and prej­u­di­cial­ly word­ed, lead­ing to con­fu­sion and neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion. They’re cham­pi­oning leg­is­la­tion that would elim­i­nate “advi­so­ry votes” and replace them with detailed, unbi­ased infor­ma­tion about the Legislature’s fis­cal deci­sions to the voter’s pam­phlet. These advo­cates say this would pre­vent “advi­so­ry votes” from clut­ter­ing up future bal­lots and save tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars on bal­lot design, print­ing, and tab­u­la­tion each year.

Do you sup­port or oppose replac­ing “advi­so­ry votes” with detailed, unbi­ased infor­ma­tion about the Legislature’s fis­cal deci­sions in the voter’s pamphlet? 

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port replac­ing “advi­so­ry votes”: 59% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 39%
  • Some­what sup­port: 20%
• Oppose replac­ing “advi­so­ry votes”: 25% 
  • Some­what oppose: 11%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 14%
• Not sure: 16%

Our sur­vey of 740 like­ly 2022 King Coun­ty gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers was in the field from Fri­day, Octo­ber 28th until Thurs­day, Novem­ber 3rd, 2022.

The poll was con­duct­ed entire­ly online for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute by Change Research and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.0%.

Fol­low this link if you’re inter­est­ed in a detailed primer on the survey’s method­ol­o­gy along with infor­ma­tion about who took the poll.

Impor­tant­ly, Sen­ate Bill 5082 (and its House com­pan­ion, House Bill 1158) do not just repeal “advi­so­ry votes.” Our leg­is­la­tion also replaces them with truth­ful, accu­rate infor­ma­tion pre­pared by the Office of Finan­cial Management.

Part III of the bill requires fis­cal impact state­ments to be pre­pared for any bills that change state rev­enue after a ses­sion ends and requires those state­ments to be made avail­able from the front page of leg.wa.gov for easy access.

The state­ments are required to employ neu­tral language.

The print­ed voter’s pam­phlet pub­lished for state gen­er­al elec­tions would also con­tain instruc­tions on how to access the fis­cal impact statements.

In Wash­ing­ton, we believe that vot­ing should be as easy as pos­si­ble. We’ve enact­ed laws pro­vid­ing for same-day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes, and more drop box­es, for exam­ple. But bar­ri­ers to vot­ing still remain, and “advi­so­ry votes” are one of the most glaring.

By pass­ing this leg­is­la­tion, we can elim­i­nate a bar­ri­er to vot­ing and pro­vide truth­ful, use­ful infor­ma­tion about the Legislature’s fis­cal deci­sions to vot­ers through the Office of Finan­cial Man­age­ment and leg­isla­tive websites.

We ask that you give SB 5082 a “do pass” recommendation.

Thank you for your ser­vice to the peo­ple of the State of Washington.