Two Shoreline City Council positions were on the primary election ballot, but campaigning began a month ago for the third seat.
Paul Grace started his campaign in July although he and opponent Chris Eggen moved straight to the general election. A supporter told me that Grace’s campaign had placed some signs in yards before the primary and planned to make them more visible now.
Primary colors: A private choice
If you marked a “party preference” on your primary ballot, your choice really was safe.
State Senate Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, now tells me that the only time anyone can tell which party I choose is in the presidential primary.
When Washington last had a presidential primary seven years ago, mail voters marked our party preferences on the outside of the envelope. This helped elections officials sort the ballots, but it made our choices evident to anyone who saw our envelopes.
Apparently, some counties compiled that information, and others didn’t. The Legislature should make sure that next year’s presidential primary follows the same private-choice rules that we have for the August primary.
King County scrupulously follows the “private choice” rules that govern primaries in Washington and eight other states.
Attempts to adopt a party-verification system, in which the voter’s party choice is public record, have died in the Legislature.
Still, the political parties have succeeded in keeping the party-preference box even though state law now says that your vote counts as long as you vote on only one party’s ballot whether or not you check the party-preference box.
Why, then, do we still have the party-preference box?
I guess that the party organizations wanted the party-preference box as a way to make us feel committed to a party, but it just makes voters mad.
If the parties want our loyalty they should get enough candidates to make their primaries meaningful. In King County this year, there was no reason to vote a Republican ballot and little reason to vote on the Democratic side.
Now, it’s time to change our primary ballot. Let’s make one of these changes:
(1) Eliminate the party-preference box, and add instructions that you may vote on either party’s ballot but not on both and that you may vote on non-partisan candidates and measures whether you vote on either party’s ballot or neither.
(2) Keep the party-preference box with two additional boxes: “Non-Partisan, not voting for partisan offices” and “Non-Partisan, but casting partisan votes on one party’s ballot.” Then, add the instruction that if you choose not to mark the party-preference box, your vote will still count as long as an you vote on only one party’s ballot.
Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.
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