OLYMPIA — The state’s Democratic and Republican parties will receive a bonus from next month’s presidential primary — the name of every voter and which party’s ballot they picked.
By law, that information must be sent to each party once results of the Feb. 19 primary are certified.
On Friday, leaders of the two political parties pledged not to target those names with a rash of mailings and solicitations for money.
“This information will not be used for fundraising,” said Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz. “We will not be contacting people based on this information.”
State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser said he won’t look to raise cash from those on the list because it won’t prove very useful.
“It would be a very poor assumption to say a person who picked a ballot to vote Republican in the presidential primary is a person who wants to give to the Republican Party,” he said.
However, knowing which voters chose which party’s ballot could help party officials unearth potential supporters of their candidates in November and to identify which potential supporters of the rival party to avoid.
“It is good for us to know the saints and those who have fallen by the wayside,” Esser said.
A 1989 law creating the presidential primary requires the parties be provided with voters’ names, addresses and party choices. A popular petition campaign a year earlier caused the state Legislature to adopt the initiative rather than put it before voters.
Ross Davis, a former state Republican Party chairman and one of the initiative’s authors, said supporters envisioned the primary replacing the party caucus system for selecting delegates to the national convention.
Therefore, they included the same rules that apply for caucus-goers: They must sign in and their name goes into the party data bank.
It’s been eight years since the state held a presidential primary and many voters may have forgotten some of the process.
Rather than signing an oath at a polling place, they will indicate allegiance on the return envelope of their mail ballots.
In Snohomish County, voters will be asked to check a box next to either “The Democratic Party Oath” or “The Republican Party Oath” on the outside flap of the return envelope.
County voters will be able to choose one candidate from either party on the ballot itself. That selection won’t be counted unless the voter also checks the oath box corresponding to that candidate’s party.
Secretary of State Sam Reed said he’s expecting “to hear a bit of outrage” — and perhaps a different kind of oath — from voters forced to swear allegiance to a party.
“It’s been a big deal each time. The voters don’t like it at all and are very vociferous about it,” Reed said.
The two political parties may not be the only ones who get the names and addresses of voters. The information is a public record for 60 days after certification of the election. Then it is destroyed.
This is the only election in Washington in which a record is kept and in which the parties are given the lists.
Reed cautioned against fretting too much about the oath and distribution of information.
“As far as we’re concerned, all they’re saying is for that one day ‘I’m Republican’ or ‘I’m Democrat.’ It is not forever,” he said.
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