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A Republican Washington secretary of state who opposed former President Donald Trump's claims of a fraudulent election will now head election security for the Biden administration.
Kim Wyman, 59, will serve as the election security lead for the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the agency responsible for safeguarding U.S. elections, the agency announced Tuesday.
Wyman has a history of leading elections and winning them. She was reelected in 2020 for a third term as secretary of state in Washington, a position she'll now have to forfeit. Gov. Jay Inslee will appoint someone to finish the remainder of her term, the Associated Press reported.
Wyman has accepted a high-profile role that will only gain in stature for as long as Trump and GOP members continue to argue he didn't lose the presidential election.
"As I assume this new role, I remain committed to protecting the integrity of our elections and working closely with local and state elections officials nationwide to bolster this foundational pillar of our democracy," Wyman said in a statement.
Homeland Security officials have expressed full support for Wyman in handling the job in a "non-partisan manner."
CISA director Jen Easterly said in a statement, "Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of our democracy; Kim and I share a common view that ensuring the security of our elections must be a non-partisan effort."
Wyman published a book last year titled "Elections 2020: Controlling Chaos: How Foreign Interference, a Global Pandemic, and Political Polarization Threaten U.S. Democracy," and has disputed every one of Trump's claims that mail-in voting was untrustworthy.
"If the president wants to rant and rave about how insecure vote by mail is or how our elections are going to be rigged, then I'm going to talk about the security measures that Washington state put in place," she told the AP in September 2020.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Trump and his allies made — and still make — assertions that there was rampant election fraud in 2020, despite evidence to the contrary. Former Attorney General William Barr told AP there was no sign of widespread fraud. As Trump railed over the election, leaders of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated publicly that it was the safest election in history. One was fired by Trump shortly after.
Scores of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies say claims of possible election fraud were dismissed by the courts, including by Trump-appointed federal judges.
Wyman's resignation, effective Nov. 19, means that Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee can appoint a temporary successor, who would serve until the general election in November 2022, which will determine who will serve the remainder of Wyman's four-year term.
Unlike vacancies in other partisan offices, like the Legislature or county offices, the governor is not limited to appointing someone from a specific political party, which means that Republicans could lose their hold on the office for the first time in more than 50 years.
When asked about the possibility he could appoint someone from the GOP to the position, Inslee spokeswoman Tara Lee said via email that they were "not ruling anything out."
"It is possible," she wrote.
The next regular election for secretary of state will be in November 2024.
In a message posted to Twitter Tuesday, Wyman said the hardest part of the decision was leaving her post before the conclusion of her term.
"However, the threats to our country's elections system continue each day and they must be met with a combined effort by IT and cybersecurity experts alongside election professionals at the local, state, and federal level," she wrote.
