Voters shouldn’t allow anger to silence them

Excuses are usually cheap. When it comes to voting, excuses for not participating are worse – they undermine democracy.

This year, a new one has cropped up because of a dramatic change in our state’s primary system. Some are saying they’ll sit out the primary because they resent being constrained to a single party’s slate of candidates in partisan races.

That’s the wrong response. After Washington’s long-standing blanket primary – which allowed voters to move back and forth between parties on the primary ballot – was ruled unconstitutional, this editorial board protested Gov. Gary Locke’s decision to veto a similar system passed by the Legislature. We still believe that a top-two system, which would allow citizens to move back and forth between parties on the primary ballot, is the best plan for our independent state.

Initiative 872, which will appear on the November ballot, would put such a system in place. Voting for that measure is a better way for voters to express their disdain for the current system than sitting out next month’s primary.

As much as we dislike the new system, dubbed “open primary, private choice,” misconceptions about it are rampant. Some clarification is warranted.

* The new system, in which voters must express a party preference in order to vote in partisan races – then vote only for candidates from that party – applies only to the Sept. 14 primary. In the Nov. 2 general election, voters can choose any candidate, regardless of party.

* Voters who don’t indicate a party preference will only be barred from voting in partisan races. Their choices in nonpartisan races and ballot issues – like tax levies – will still count.

* Absolutely no record will be kept of your party preference.

* If you go to the polls in Snohomish County rather than voting by mail, poll workers won’t ask you your party preference; you’ll make your choice on a computer screen, in the privacy of the voting booth.

Supporters of minor-party candidates have another reason to vote in the primary: No candidate who receives less than 1 percent of the total votes cast in a primary race can advance to the general election, even if they’re unopposed in the primary. So Libertarians, for example, risk not having their candidate on the November ballot if they skip voting in September.

And all voters have an important stake in nonpartisan races and tax levies. Plenty of those will be on the Sept. 14 ballot, and critical ballot issues will fail to be validated if too many voters stay on the sidelines.

There can be no excuse for that.

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