Inslee’s Republican opponent drops lawsuit alleging mass voter fraud

(The Center Square) — Loren Culp, one-time opponent of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, has dropped his lawsuit against the state’s elections boss after weeks of trumpeting mass voter fraud conspiracies.

The lawsuit named Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, as a defendant along with the auditors of Whatcom, Skagit, Thurston, Spokane, and Clark counties, among others won by Inslee.

In it, Culp alleged without evidence that Wyman counted thousands of ballots from deceased and out of state voters in the 2020 general election, costing him the gubernatorial election. The lawsuit sought as injunctive relief an audit of each election office it named as a defendant.

Final vote tallies certified by Wyman on December 2 placed Culp behind Inslee by 545,177 votes.

The lawsuit was permanently withdrawn from King County Superior Court Friday following the Washington Democratic Party’s request to dismiss it with prejudice.

Culp, a former small town police chief and Army veteran, announced the news during a Facebook livestream on Friday, saying he could not afford to see the lawsuit through after a discussion with his attorney.

“[My attorney] said that the Attorney General’s Office would probably string this out years, costing us millions of dollars,” Culp said. “I’m not willing to ask you for that money just to end up having a judge throw it out for standing and then having the state, through that judge, require us to pay back to the state the costs incurred.”

The failed Republican gubernatorial nominee has been named in two lawsuits of his own.

One concerns his alleged mishandling of a sexual abuse case as a Republic police officer while another relates to his alleged violation of a driver’s civil rights at a traffic stop.

In February 2020, the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission issued a written warning to Culp for spending $10,230 in campaign money buying his 2019 autobiography, “American Cop.”

Culp has not been subject to any further campaign finance warnings since then.

Voter fraud in Washington is very rare, according to a study by the conservative Heritage Foundation, as well as the Washington Attorney General’s office.

The 2016 general election saw the state investigate 74 cases of voter fraud or about .002% of the 3.36 million votes cast that election cycle.

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