House Bill H-0749.1 (House Bill 1745, 2025) adds new sections to chapter 29A.60 RCW and takes effect immediately under an emergency clause. It creates a procedural requirement that each county have an independent, impartial company perform a manual, hand-count audit of that county’s election results. For the mandated audit of the 2024 general election, each county’s Democratic and Republican party chairpersons select the audit company (with a coin toss to choose the vendor if they cannot agree); for later elections the party chairpersons may choose the same or a different vendor. The company must begin the audit immediately after certification of the election, hand-count ballots for at least 12 precincts (each party selects six precincts), include duplicated and adjudicated ballots, and expand the precinct sample if the selected precincts contain fewer than 5% of the county’s ballots. Races or measures to be audited may differ by precinct, public election observers must be allowed to observe locating, sorting, counting, and to examine duplicated and adjudicated ballots alongside originals, and the company must report its findings and recommendations to the legislature by December 31 of the election year. Section 3 requires each county to conduct the 2024 general election audit within 30 days of that section’s effective date. The bill is a procedural change establishing audit duties and reporting; it does not create a new crime or change penalties. Several details are not specified in the extracted text: the meaning of “statistically significant,” which “certification” triggers the audit, who pays for or hires the company and what qualifications the company must have, who may serve as a public election observer, exact timelines for completing audit steps between start and the December 31 report, and dispute-resolution procedures for precinct selection beyond the vendor coin toss.

If enacted, every county would be required to have an independent company perform a manual hand-count audit of at least 12 precincts (expanded as needed to cover at least 5% of ballots) comparing physical ballots to machine tallies, with precincts and races chosen by the county Democratic and Republican chairpersons and public observers allowed broad access including duplicated and adjudicated ballots. The audits must start right after election certification, the auditor must report findings and recommendations to the Legislature by December 31 of the election year, and a county-level audit of the 2024 general election must be completed quickly after the law takes effect because the bill takes effect immediately. The people and entities most affected are county election officials (who will need to provide ballots, access, and logistics), county Democratic and Republican chairpersons (who gain selection responsibilities for vendors and precincts), and the private vendors chosen to carry out hand counts; public observers will have expanded rights to watch the process, and the Legislature will receive written audit reports. The law creates likely new operational burdens and costs for counties and vendors and shifts selection power to party chairs, but the bill text does not specify who pays, what qualifications vendors must meet, how “statistically significant” is defined, exact timing tied to certification, or who may serve as observers, leaving funding, procurement, and some compliance details uncertain.