OLYMPIA — Something is absent from primary ballot envelopes now flowing into election offices statewide.
Anger.
During elections each of the past four years, voters who despised having to declare a political party in partisan races scrawled angry and sometimes hateful messages on envelopes and ballots.
In 2004, one Island County voter wrote “I won’t vote this Nazi ballot” in black marker on the envelope while Snohomish County voters jotted slogans such as “This primary sucks” and “Won’t participate!!” on their ballots.
Secretary of State Sam Reed said that year his office received 16,000 e-mails from upset voters. So many complaint calls came in that phone banks were set up and temporary workers were hired to handle the volume, he said.
This year’s debut of the “Top Two” primary is not inciting any negative response at all — so far.
“We are not receiving the angry phone calls,” Snohomish County Auditor Carolyn Diepenbrock said last week. “It is certainly less tense because there is not this underlying anger and frustration that there was with the pick-a-party system.”
In this primary, all candidates for an office are listed together and voters can pick any one they want.
The two candidates with the most votes in each race will advance to the general election, regardless of their political affiliation. This could lead to two hopefuls of the same political persuasion on the November ballot.
In nonpartisan races, a candidate with a majority of votes in the primary will be the winner. Otherwise the top two vote-getters move on.
This overhaul is the product of a legal fight launched by the state’s Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties against the once cherished, much litigated and now departed blanket primary system.
They argued that letting voters choose candidates of any party in each race violated the political parties’ constitutional rights to control the process of determining their nominees in those races.
In 2003, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and threw out the blanket primary. In early 2004, the state Legislature enacted a new law that required voters to indicate a party preference and vote only for candidates in that party.
September marked the first use of the new method. In November 2004, voters passed Initiative 872 aimed at regaining some of the choice enjoyed with the blanket primary. The parties sued to block its use.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the measure should be given a chance. Its constitutionality could not be determined, justices concluded, because it hadn’t yet been used. After the election, the parties might mount another legal attack.
For voters, one of the big differences on the ballot is candidates no longer associate directly with a political party. Instead they are identified by the party they prefer — Democrat, Republican, America’s Third or even Salmon Yoga.
Voters are finding many of the contests have more than two people competing. In Snohomish County there are 11 partisan battles with only two candidates so both will advance automatically.
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., is in one of the races. He’s challenged by Republican Larry Ishmael of Redmond in a rematch of the 2006 fight for this seat.
Similarly, in the 39th Legislative District, state Rep. Dan Kristiansen, R-Snohomish, is again dueling Democrat Scott Olson.
Other offices with only two competitors are state attorney general, state commissioner of public lands and state legislative seats in the 1st, 10th, 21st, 38th, and 44th legislative districts.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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