pudge's Journal: Blanket Primary

In the last few years, the political parties in the state of Washington have successfully overturned the so-called "blanket primary," which allows voters to vote across party lines on the primary.

The basic idea is simple: the primary exists for the purpose of choosing the party's candidate for the general election. If you choose to not affiliate with a party, then why should you get to help the party choose their candidate?

It's a compromise. The parties -- private organizations -- open up the process to the public, and in return, ask that the voters who choose to participate at least affiliate themselves with the party for the purposes of the primary.

And this is not even new to Washington: the caucus system here has always worked that way. If you caucus with one party, you can't caucus with another party. It's the exact same idea.

So fast forward to this year. The mail-in ballots require you to choose a party if you are to vote in partisan races. A whopping 22% in a random sample in Snohomish County failed to choose a party. Other counties had numbers from 5 to 14 percent. (Oddly, Snohomish County was one of the few counties -- I think King was the only other -- to have a primary last year, under these new rules; but I suppose turnout was so low, that most of the people who voted are more involved, and therefore better understand the issues involved, and were less likely to make mistakes or throw a fit.)

From that number alone, it's hard to tell if these were protests against the new blanket system, or mistakes, or merely choosing to not affiliate with a party.

Sam Reed, the Secretary of State, replied: "Any of these numbers are too high, when you consider a governor's race was decided by a fraction of a percent, the fact that these votes aren't going to be counted, I think is something that is alarming."

But it is perfectly reasonable to think that five or more percent of a population simply doesn't want to help either party select its candidates. But Sam doesn't understand that. By comparing this to the general election, he shows he has no understanding of what a primary actually is for. The partisan primary is not for everyone. It is only for you if you want to help one of the parties select its candidates. If you do not want to do that, you should not participate, because that is the only reason to participate. By definition.

Frankly, I think Sam Reed is just grasping at straws. You see, he is a Republican, but many Republicans -- for reasons just like this -- don't like him. He benefitted from the blanket primary because he got a lot of crossover votes from Democrats. That's not going to happen when he runs the next time. And that is as good a reason to be against the blanket primary as any.

One more thing about this stuff: a lot of people are complaining that their ballot should still count; that it shouldn't be discounted just because they made an "honest mistake." No, that's not how it works. If you can't follow simple and clear directions, your ballot should not count. That said, I wouldn't mind a rule that said if a ballot contained partisan votes only for one party, then that should have the same effect as having explicitly chosen that party. I don't see why that would be a problem. But it's too late now to change that rule.

The good news is that the partisan primary is -- in most of the state -- meaningless, as there's few seriously contested races. The only meaningful votes for most of the state are local ballot initiatives, and Supreme Court and other local judicial races, all of which are nonpartisan. So hopefully all this confusion and animosity won't have a deleterious effect, and will work itself out for the next time around, when it will matter a lot more.

Primaries

[multimed]

I've read your entries on primaries before and disagreed at first, but have come around. I actually didn't vote in yesterdays primaries because even though I vote for a Replublican candidate 75% of the time, I do not support the party itself to the point of wanting to associate myself with it. There were some Democrats I would have liked to vote forward as the candidate for that party and some Republicans I would have like to support, but didn't want to choose one or the other to affiliate myself with. I

Re:

[pudge]

BUT...I don't believe the parties should be allowed to run their primaries the same as the general elections. By this I mean the location should not be the same (if they're town halls, libraries and such), the people running them, the machines, etc should all be taken care of by the parties with no taxpayer support and separate from the real elections. And non-partisan elections, referenda and such should never be on the same ballot either.

That's fine, but that is the decision of the people: not the parties

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[pudge]

Are you saying that you used to be able to vote in both primaries at once?

Yes. Though only one candidate per office or whatever. So under the old system I could vote for Cantwell (D) for Senate over McGavick (R), and then turn around and vote for Roulstone (R) over Larsen (D) in the House.

In Virginia, you never 'register' with any party, and at a primary election, you have to choose which primary to vote in. There's nothing stopping me from voting in the Democrat primary this year, and the Republican prim

Question

[polymath69]

Pudge,

This might possibly be naive of me, but why shouldn't all voters
get to choose whomever they consider less evil among both (or all)
parties in the primaries, so that they might allow themselves
to consider amongst whatever they might consider personally to be
their best possible choices in the general election?

Connecticut has not had open primaries at any time within
my memory, but the idea has always appealed.

-p69

Re:

[pudge]

Because the point of the primary is for the parties to choose their candidates. If you are voting for candidates from both parties, you are obviously not participating in the actual purpose of the primary, since you are not choosing to affiliate with either party. The parties own their own name, and they have a Constitutional right to decide for themselves who gets to be their candidate. It's not fair for a bunch of Democrats, as in Rhode Island last week, to tell the Republicans who their candidate shou

Re:

[polymath69]

Pudge,

They say that no one ever changed anybody else's opinion by posting on the Internet. But I think you're mostly right.

I do have a question about this bit, though.

Remember, above all else, parties are private organizations. They get to make the choice who gets their name on the ballot.

They're not your typical private organizations. For example, I might be able to sign up for the NAACP and the KKK at the same time, but I can't be a Republican and a Libertarian at the same time, even though each

Re:

[pudge]

They're not your typical private organizations. For example, I might be able to sign up for the NAACP and the KKK at the same time, but I can't be a Republican and a Libertarian at the same time, even though each of the latter reflects some of my values. The registration forms allow one choice, or none; they're also government forms in the first place, which means that this private exclusivity is being sanctioned by the state.

Well ... the analogy has some problems. First, the GOP and Dems are pitted dire