A Washington election observer has been charged with a felony after refusing to wear a mask during the November presidential vote count.
Timothy Hazelo, a Republican from Oak Harbor, was charged last week with unauthorized access to a voting center over a dispute that started when he refused to don a mask while monitoring ballot-counters.
Police were called on the 57-year-old when he refused to follow the mask-mandate that Island County Auditor Shelia Crider had imposed on local ballot-counting rooms — a measure that Hazelo says the elected official had no legal right to establish.
“We have to stand up when we believe something is wrong,” Hazelo told KOMO News.
The hoopla started as Hazelo arrived at the counting rooms, where signs had been posted outside reading “masks required in this room” and offering to provide them if anybody didn’t have one.
Hazelo refused to wear one, arguing the auditor’s mandate had no legal bearing and going about his duties as masked workers tallied ballots around him.
Somebody eventually called the police on Hazelo, and the cops told him he could either put a mask on or leave.
“It was determined Hazelo would be offered one final opportunity to comply with the policy set by the Island County Auditor to wear a mask in the ballot processing rooms, and if he continued to refuse to comply with the policy, he would be asked to exit the room,” an arrest report read.
Body-cam footage from the incident obtained by KOMO showed Hazelo being non-combative but telling an election worker, “I know who you are” as he left — which the worker told police made them feel they were being threatened.
“Hazelo then stopped and attempted to ask me if I was going to enforce a policy he said they did not have a right to set,” the election worker told police in their report. “I explained that I didn’t know what he was alleging, only that he was being disorderly in his refusal to leave the building. I advised Hazelo I have nothing to do with setting the rules, and that he was not following the policies set by the auditor.”
Hazelo was initially charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, with the felony charge coming months later.
He has refused to back down from his stance that the auditor had no legal right to impose a mask-mandate.
“They can say, ‘Look it’s highly recommended that if you feel sick, if you don’t feel good, or you don’t feel safe, or you’re worried, we highly recommend you wear this mask,’ ” Hazelo told KOMO. “A mandate goes too far.”
Auditor Crider said she gave the mask order after a bout of COVID spread through the county election staff during the primary in August and that masks would keep workers safe from anything they might be exposed to handling so many people’s ballots.
An “unmasked” area was put in place outside of the room’s door that allowed observers who didn’t wish to wear a mask to do their work from the hall.
Hazelo wasn’t the first worker to take issue with the order. A week earlier, another person was forced to leave the counting room for refusing to put on a mask.
Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh said he agrees with Hazelo’s stance that the auditor had no legal right to impose a mask mandate, according to KOMO.
Hazelo said he thinks the courts will prove him right — and that his fight has nothing to do with masks.
“What it has to do with is at what point is a politician accountable for their decisions? What decisions can they make and can they not make at their level,” he said. “I don’t want to be charged with a criminal offense, I want the court to decide whether [Crider] can make this decision on her own.”
