On March 4, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5171, which moves the primary (for office other than President) from late August to early August. The filing deadline moves three weeks earlier, into late April. The bill passed with only one “no” vote.
Washington uses a top-two system. One of the disadvantages of that system is that all avenues to the November ballot are shut off early in the year (except for write-ins). In a traditional system, even if the major parties choose their nominees in the first half of the year, there is usually a method for independent candidates, or new parties, to get on the ballot later. This flexibility is useful if some important and unexpected public event occurs in the middle of the year, to make it possible for voters to support someone entering the race late, in response to that unexpected event.
There is no reason for an April deadline when the election is in August. That would be the equivalent of making the parties nominate their presidential candidates in July.
And the reason for shifting to early August is because they have to send their overseas ballots in September (effectively they are no longer November elections, but September elections). Washington makes it worse sense they accept late-arriving mail ballots so that they don’t end up with finally canvassed results until a month after the election.
The instances you can cite of “flexibility” are actually a result of a too early primary.
P.R. and App.V. — NO primaries are needed.