This bill amends RCW 29A.08.125 to require the Secretary of State to create and maintain a centralized, uniform, interactive computerized statewide voter registration database and to designate that statewide list as the official list of registered voters for all elections. The database must include, at minimum, each voter's name, date of birth, residence address, signature image, gender, date of registration, and a unique identifier, and must comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The Secretary of State is given data authority over voter registration data and must coordinate the database with specified state agencies (including the departments of Corrections, Licensing, and Health), county auditors, and potentially other states’ election officials and certain federal agencies (including the FBI, federal courts, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and USCIS). The system must identify duplicate and suspected duplicate registrations, screen available government databases for ineligibility due to felony confinement, lack of citizenship, or court-ordered incompetence, retain records of successful appeals of proposed cancellations, provide signature images for petition checks, compare to the Department of Licensing change-of-address file, cancel out-of-state voters, store pending under-18 registration records separately, and provide secure online voter access for replacement ballots and registration updates using an individualized verification system (this verification method is exempt from public inspection under chapter 42.56 RCW). County auditors must electronically enter registration information into the statewide database, maintain a county list with taxing district and precinct codes and each voter's election history, and allow electronic access and data transfer between county systems and the statewide list. This is a statutory amendment to an existing Washington statute (RCW 29A.08.125). The extracted text does not include an effective date, implementation timetable, funding, technical specifications for the unique identifier or verification system, formal definitions for terms such as “authorized employees” or “data authority,” or enforcement mechanisms. The bill was read for the first time on 02/20/25.

If enacted, the secretary of state would become the central manager of a single official statewide list of registered voters that must include specific personal details, a unique identifier for each voter, images of signatures for petition checks, and tools to find duplicate or potentially ineligible registrants (for example, people serving felony confinement, noncitizens, or those found mentally incompetent). County auditors would have to enter new registrations electronically, keep a county version of the list with precinct and taxing district codes and voting history, and be able to update and cancel registrations; voters would get a secure, individualized online method to print replacement ballots and update their registration, with that verification method exempt from public records review. The immediate effects fall most heavily on the office of the secretary of state and on county auditors, who would take on expanded responsibilities and almost certainly face new costs for staffing, coordination with agencies named in the bill (Corrections, Licensing, Health) and possible federal screening partners, and for operating the required systems; voters would likely see more convenient online services but also reduced transparency around the verification method and new privacy risks from sharing signature images and cross‑agency screening. The bill text provided does not include any funding, implementation timeline, or technical specifications, so how those costs, staffing needs, security measures, and legal safeguards would be handled is unclear.