Secretary of State of Washington
elected constitutional office in Washington, United States
The secretary of state of Washington is an independently elected constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of Washington. Fifteen individuals have held the office of Secretary of State since statehood. The incumbent is Steve Hobbs, a Democrat.
The secretary of state most notably manages elections, the office that posts the names of candidates for public offices manages the printing and distribution of ballots.
Qualifications
To hold office as secretary of state, a person must be a United States citizen registered to vote in the state of Washington, provide a $10,000 surety bond to the state conditioned on faithful execution of the duties of office, and reside in the city of Olympia, Washington, by the time of inauguration. Only the governor, state treasurer and secretary of state are constitutionally required to live in the capital city.
A surety bond is an official bond that official must pay to ensure that can be held accountable in cases of fraud or malpractice. The surety bond for Secretary of State is $10,000 to cover the duration of a 4-year commission.
Every 10 years the U.S Census Bureau requires a redistricting of the national, state and local legislatures to ensure that U.S citizens get equal representation. This process involves the secretary of state, the governor and the state legislatures playing key roles in deciding the reshaping of districts.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7444392. VIAF identifies the subject as 126659972. The Library of Congress control number is n79117245. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Secretary of State of Washington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.