Washington representative Zack Hudgins (D-Tukwila) has introduced HB 1469, to move the presidential primaries from the fourth Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday in March. The bill retains the aspect of the existing law that allows the date to be moved if the major parties agree to another date.
The bill also provides that the votes should be tallied so that the public and the parties would received two different vote totals for each candidate. There would be a tally for voters who were willing to sign in as party members, and a tally for voters who said they do not intend to join a party. The parties could use either set of election returns to determine who had been elected as a delegate to the national convention.
“The parties could use either set of election returns to determine who had been elected as a delegate to the national convention.”
I can’t see any way that a party may use this to manipulate it to make their preferred candidate win. But that’s moot since no party would ever do such a thing.
The bill is requested by the Secretary of State. This is the press release:
https://www.sos.wa.gov/office/news-releases.aspx#/news/1225
It is somewhat comparable to a bill proposed in 2015, but with changes to make it more palatable to Democratic Party officials. The current presidential primary was created by initiative back before Washington began adopting vote-by-mail. Since Washington voters did not have partisan registration, and voting in the blanket primary permitted voters to cross-over vote, the presidential primary required voters to publicly request a party ballot. Now that Washington is entirely vote-by-mail, and ballots are sent to all registered votes, they have created a system where voters complete a party affiliation form on the outside of the ballot envelope, which can be checked off when the ballot envelope is removed from the carrier envelope, and the ballot is pulled. This avoids a two-step process like is used in California, where non-affiliated vote-by-mail voters, must send back a request for a party ballot for the presidential primary.
Voters in Washington do not like to have a public record of their party affiliation. Party apparatchiks do not like voters. Elected officials such as legislators may be more reasonable. So the bill permits voters to vote without filling out the affiliation form, while permitting parties to ignore their votes.
The 2015 bill would have required the parties to use the presidential primary to allocate at least one delegate. If both parties did not agree to this, then there would be no party affiliation by voters, and the primary would be a beauty contest which either party could ignore.
The new bill retains the authority to ignore the primary entirely, or to ignore votes by voters who do not formally affiliate.
The Democratic Party may have been embarrassed by the 2016 nomination process, in which the Democrats preferred Bernie Sanders in a convention process that began in March, and also chose four elector candidates who later refused to vote for the party nominee. In addition, voters in the presidential primary in May voted for Clinton. The Democratic Party would claim that the presidential primary was a waste of time, but might be perceived by some voters as their voting be a waste of time, and we’re ignoring you.
There might be some pressure by the DNC to force states to use primaries as well. In 2015, Washington Democrats claimed that they had already filed their delegate selection plan with the DNC and that the DNC would not permit split (convention and primary) selection of delegates. In effect they said, “we don’t want a primary (period). But even if we did, which we don’t, the DNC wouldn’t let us.”
The new bill permits the SOS to unilaterally change the presidential primary to a later date in order to coordinate with other Western states. The proposed date of the 2nd Tuesday in March might be an effort to carve out a date that is distinct from the first Tuesday in March which has been Super Tuesday used particularly by southern States.
The new bill changes the language for withdrawing candidates. Currently, the SOS chooses the candidates, with an option to petition on to the ballot for candidates are not selected. If a candidate withdraws under current law, they have to commit to not running in the general election. But Washington does not have a sore loser law applied to the presidential primary, because there are few if any candidates who make a declaration, and the concept of “loser” is ambiguous when delegates are proportionally allocated, and the national party may nominate a Washington loser. The new law simply requires a candidate to declare that they don’t want to be on the ballot. In addition it permits the SOS to remove candidates who have suspended their campaign. In 2016, Ben Carson was on the Washington ballot despite having suspended his campaign, but not officially notifying Washington officials.
The bill removes the requirement for a write-in space, but current and continuing law requires the presidential primary to be conducted in the manner of the (Top 2) primary, which do permit write-in votes. It also requires the ballot conform to state or national party rules. A party could require write-in votes, or forbid them. A party might also require a None of These Candidates.
Is this the Democratic Party establishment in WA and DC trying to undermine the caucus system in WA to avoid uncomfotable things like Sanders carrying WA despite the state and national party establishment having sworn fielty to Clinton?
Deran,
Clinton won the Washington presidential primary in 2016. Roughly three times as many persons voted in the Democratic presidential primary as participated in the precinct caucuses.