Two Bob Fergusons drop out of race for Washington state governor

UPDATE: Monday at 5 p.m.

Both Robert Fergusons dropped out of the race for governor before the 5 p.m. deadline Monday.

Candidate Dave Reichert released the following statement: “In all nine of my previous campaigns, I have won without any games or antics such as these. I don’t support any effort to deceive the voters of Washington state.”

Candidate Mark Mullet released the following statement: “The two Bobs should withdraw before the 5:00 deadline today. We don’t need anything to confuse voters on the ballot. This is an illegal sideshow that threatens our democracy and does nothing to improve our electoral process.”

ORIGINAL STORY

There are three Bob Fergusons running for Washington state governor.

One of them is the state attorney general, and he is calling this an illegal scheme with effort to confuse voters.

“We have threats to our democracy. This is a threat to our election system,” said the state attorney general.

There’s a total of 30 candidates running for state governor, the two Bob Fergusons filed Friday afternoon prior to the 5 p.m. deadline.

According to the Seattle Times, one is a retired state employee from Yakima, and the other is a military veteran from Graham.

“Cease and desist letters were hand delivered to the homes of the other two Robert Fergusons yesterday urging them to withdraw by the deadline five o’clock today,” said the state attorney general.

On social media, Glen Morgan said, “Yes, I am the volunteer campaign manager for two of the Bob Fergusons running for Governor. They are both superior in every way to the AG running for the same office, and I believe they can provide better choices for the Democrats in our state for that office.”

The state attorney general says if the two do not withdraw their names they have sent a letter to the secretary of state to further investigate this.

“Now I suspect that the two other Bob Fergusons that were duped into putting their name onto the ballot didn’t know and were told that this is a Class B felony. A ‘Class B’ felony has a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and sub section four here seems like it was written for today,” said Dan Satterberg, former King County Prosecuting Attorney.

In these types of situations, to avoid any confusion, the state allows candidates with similar names to add information on the ballot such as their profession or change their status to incumbent or challenger.

Some of the other candidates running are Democratic State Senator Mark Mullet, former military intelligence analyst EL’ona Kearney, and former King County Sheriff and congressman Dave Reichert.