On April 22, the Washington state legislature passed HB 1474. It provides that in all cases, non-partisan state office elections will always appear on the November ballot. Under current law, for state offices that are non-partisan, if anyone gets 50% or more in the August primary, the person is deemed elected.
But under the bill, the state non-partisan offices will always appear on the November ballot, even if someone got 100% of the votes in the August primary. Washington state has write-in space on the November ballot, so even if only one candidate will appear on the November ballot (because only one person filed), in theory the person could be defeated by a write-in candidate in November. Here is the text of the bill, which is very short.
The non-partisan state offices are Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all three levels of state judge (Supreme, Appeals, and Superior). Here is a news story about the bill. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.
See 14th Amdt, Sec. 2
— worked on from Dec 1865 to June 1866 — a mere 7 months
— i.e. every word was gone over many, many, many times
— after some math genius told the top Elephants that due to the 13th Amdt, the ex-slave States would have a HIGHER percentage of the USA Reps and E.C. votes
— result – MAJOR Elephant panic.
The 14th Amdt was a last chance effort to prevent the horrific Civil War from resuming.
It’s good to see recognition that the November general election is the actual, real election where voters vote to fill an office.
Now they need to take the next step and allow all candidates to appear in the November general election and …
REPEAL the evil, one-party “top-two” law.