We elected two State Supreme Court justices, two King County Superior Court judges and one Snohomish County Superior Court judge in last week’s primary.
That’s because any superior court candidate who gets a majority of the primary vote wins the election, and any court of appeals or supreme court candidate who wins a majority in the primary runs unopposed in November.
Electing judges is part of Washington’s populist tradition. So let’s elect them in November, when more people vote.
If there are only two candidates for a judgeship, let them advance directly to November. If three or more candidates run, use the primary to narrow the field.
Primary: The top-two worked
The top-two system validated our two-party system at the state and congressional-district levels. In elections for all eight statewide partisan offices and all nine congressional seats, the primary gave us a general election between a Democrat and a Republican.
Most seats in the state legislature also will have Democrat vs. Republican elections, but the few that aren’t won’t show the strength of the system.
The best example was in the 7th Legislative District in northeastern Washington. All six primary candidates were Republicans. None got more than 27 percent of the vote. Under a partisan primary, the candidate with 27 percent would have run unopposed in the general election. Under the top-two system, he will run off against another Republican who got 25 percent of the primary vote.
The top-two also gives voters a contested general election in the Renton area. There, longtime 11th District Democratic state Sen. Margarita Prentice would have been the Democratic nominee, running unopposed in November. With the new system, she’ll face the stronger of two Democrats who were her only challengers in the primary.
The system also worked in northwest Seattle, where voters in the 36th District gave two Democrats 43 and 42 percent of the vote and the one Republican 15 percent. A runoff between two closely matched Democrats will mean more than a match between the leading Democrat and a token Republican candidate. In fact, it will give Republicans an important role. They will hold the balance of power. They may help elect the more conservative Democrat.
Some complain that voters in that district and the nearby 46th District, which also eliminated a Republican in favor of two Democrats, have lost their right to vote for a Republican. They have, but so have the voters in districts where a Democrat is running unopposed.
Others complain that the system hurts minor parties. It didn’t hurt them in the primary, where we saw more parties on the ballot than at any time since the end of the blanket primary. It also helped Libertarian Ruth Bennett, who will be on the general election ballot against a Democrat in a Seattle legislative district. Perhaps, future minor-party candidates will find places where they can qualify for the general election.
Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.
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