By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Rotary Club of Seattle President Nancy Cahill thanked Secretary of Steve Steve Hobbs for his presentation. (Photo by Assunta Ng)
Washington State Secretary of State Steve Hobbs popped in for a special lunchtime guest appearance at a Rotary Club meeting on April 3 at the Westin Hotel to talk a little bit about his office and what the Secretary of State does.
Hobbs, a Rotarian himself and a member of the National Guard, gave listeners a little bit of personal history and background, before diving into the ins and outs of the office. Hobbs described himself as “born and made in Japan,” but raised in the United States, where he and his mother learned English by watching Sesame Street together, after moving to the United States in 1969.
Hobbs explained to his fellow Rotarians that his office’s seal is often what makes certain state government acts legal and official.
“True story: The Nisqually earthquake happened many, many, many years ago, and [former Washington State Governor] Gary Locke … tried to mobilize the National Guard, declare a state of emergency—he could not do that,” Hobbs told his audience. “Why? Because the State Seal was located in the Secretary of State’s office, they had evacuated the building. So they had to escort [former Secretary of State] Sam Reid into the building to put the seal on it to declare a state of emergency.”
The Secretary of State has between 300 and 350 employees within eight divisions. The office serves many functions, including dealing with birth, divorce, and marriage certificates; handling the creation and licensure of corporations and charities; organizing trade missions to other countries; and putting out books, such as one that just came out this year that celebrates the state’s 10th anniversary of marriage equality. The office also deals with voting and voter fraud, Hobbs said, and the office works hard to prevent voter fraud and the spread of misinformation around elections.
Hobbs also highlighted the office’s role in creating and upkeeping libraries throughout the state, including specialized libraries, such as fiscal libraries and prison libraries. He also talked about his “love of nerd culture,” citing Washington as the birthplace of the tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. He explained that the state has an ongoing partnership with the company, as part of a new initiative to open gaming libraries in rural areas, such as one the office recently opened in Yakima.
“I somehow convinced [State Senator] Curtis King to play Dungeons and Dragons with me,” Hobbs said, referring to Yakima’s game library opening celebration. “He didn’t want to do it at first, but he had a lot of fun at the end.”
Despite the levity of most of his talk, Hobbs fielded several sobering questions, including one about the challenges of the election system making it difficult to find election workers.
“What do you do about it, considering that?” the audience member asked.
Because Washington state is a state that allows mail-in ballots, “we don’t need as many volunteers as a state that has poll workers,” Hobbs explained. “But the threads have increased quite a bit. In fact, [former Secretary of State Kim Wyman] was threatened with her life. The auditor in Thurston County was threatened with her life. We’ve had harassment of election workers. That’s why we had to pass this year a bill to make it a Class C felony to go after people that harass [election workers].”
The Northwest Asian Weekly’s Assunta Ng—also a Rotarian—first asked Hobbs whether he owned all the Marvel regalia that she had seen in his office—Thor’s Hammer, Captain America’s shield, and more. When Hobbs answered in the affirmative, Ng asked him for an open invitation for fellow Rotarians to visit his office to see “all the cool stuff” he had collected.
Ng also asked Hobbs about his run to keep his office in this year’s election and how difficult he thinks that will be.
“My races have been horrible,” Hobbs said. “It’s always been horrible. But I’ll make it. If not, I am on LinkedIn.”
Hobbs also addressed another audience member who said he was concerned that independents get “shut out” of the election. Hobbs said that this is an issue about which he has “heard a lot” lately. He said that the Supreme Court requires a party nomination process for presidential elections, rather than just having the public vote for a candidate of one party and designate their party choice that way.
Another audience member asked Hobbs about his office’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the elections process.
“AI terrifies me. It really does. It should terrify you. It was used as a weapon during the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,” Hobbs said, referring to Russia’s attempt at a deepfake video of Ukraine leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. An AI generated video of Zelenskyy was shown telling Ukraine soldiers to surrender to Russia.
Hobbs said that he wanted to ban AI videos outright, but that certain companies had deep pockets and the long reach of lobbyists. Instead, Hobbs was able to impose disclosure rules and utilize AI to scan social media and see what the trends are. He said that his office uses it to combat misinformation.
“For example,” Hobbs said, “if I get a report that says, ‘Hey, the tabulation machines are being hacked,’ then I know that I would combat that by putting word out on my social media and telling the networks and working with nonprofits to let people know that, ‘Hey, you can’t hack in the tabulation machines, because they’re not connected to the internet.’ So that’s the way we use that system.”
He said that the system is not surveilling the public and that such a system is important, because a failure to combat lies and misinformation lead to events like the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Hobbs also said the system is used to scan for potential threats, and said that the system has already found at least a couple targeted at Hobbs himself.
Hobbs encouraged people to fact-check everything, and be thorough about the people friend requesting them on social media platforms like Facebook, because often, strangers pretending to be other people—most often impersonating attractive young women—will try to mine information and data from social media users.
Carolyn can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.