WA Senate Bill 6028

Legislation

State: Washington
Signed: March 21, 2020

Effective: June 12, 2020
Chapter: 57

Summary

Washington enacts the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, one of the last remaining states to do so.

Affects

Adds as yet new uncodified sections to the Revised Statutes of Washington.

Changes

Provides that if a law requires a signature or record to be notarized, acknowledged, verified, or made under oath, the requirement is satisfied if the electronic signature of the person authorized to perform those acts (e.g., a Notary Public), together with all other information required to be included by other applicable law, is attached to or logically associated with the signature or record.

Analysis

Back in 2000, President Clinton signed the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (E-SIGN) Act. That law legalized electronic signatures and transactions and allowed Notaries to use electronic signatures to perform notarial acts in any matter affecting interstate commerce. The bill also provided that the federal law would apply to all U.S. states and jurisdictions unless they enacted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA). This resulted in almost every U.S. state and the District of Columbia enacting the UETA because they wanted their own state law to regulate electronic transactions, signatures and notarizations. Washington was one state that did not enact the UETA back then because it had its own digital signature statute that was law before E-SIGN was passed. For many years this law regulated electronic transactions in Washington state until it was finally repealed last year. With that statute no longer on the books, Washington enacted the UETA, leaving just Illinois and New York as the outlier states that have not.

Read Senate Bill 6028.